Dekko All Stars did what on­ly two teams were able to do through twen­ty-four rounds of 9-ball com­pe­ti­tion, and that was to beat the Rox­bury Shot Callers. On Tues­day night, the An­drew Har­ri­lal-led Dekko team host­ed the top team in week 25 of the Na­tion­al Pool League’s first di­vi­sion. The Shot Callers, with a record of twen­ty-one wins and on­ly three loss­es, would have been ex­pect­ing to ex­tend their lead at the top of the stand­ings, and af­ter the first two games, it looked like that is ex­act­ly what they would do. There would, how­ev­er, be a twist in the tail.

The home team did not have the best of starts, with Daryl Per­sad and Neil Sam­lal los­ing their re­spec­tive games. Things took a com­plete turn-around from the dou­ble’s en­counter with Har­ri­lal and Rober­to ‘Zi­co’ Mar­cano run­ning through their op­po­nents in four straight frames. Vin­cent Badree and Mohnan Moon­sam­my then com­plet­ed the come­back, much to the de­light of the Dekko faith­ful.

Be­fore the rear-guard ac­tion led by the Dekko cap­tain, D. Per­sad split the first four frames with Akash ‘Knuck­les’ Poon and even took a three-to-two lead over the vis­it­ing vet­er­an, but Poon called on all his ex­pe­ri­ence to over­come the deficit and even­tu­al­ly win the hill/hill game 4-3. Sam­lal, un­for­tu­nate­ly, did not of­fer much re­sis­tance against the vis­it­ing cap­tain, Raj ‘El Cap­i­tan’ Per­sad, los­ing one game to four.

Then came the Har­ri­lal/Mar­cano show, which turned the match on its head and sig­nalled the be­gin­ning of the Dekko come­back. The home pair came up against Bri­an Bis­nath and Jonathan Gor­ing, and it was no con­test as the hosts scored four unan­swered frame wins, in­clud­ing an 9-ball (tack­le) in the sec­ond rack.

Badree led two-nil be­fore Stew­art fought back to tie things up at two apiece, but Badree seemed to want it more and com­plet­ed the win with two straight frames, the last of which was a com­bi­na­tion shot (tack­le) on the 9-ball. The de­cid­ing game went right down to the wire.

Moon­sam­my, for the hosts, fell two games be­hind Ku­mar Singh be­fore hit­ting back with three straight wins. Singh made the con­test in­ter­est­ing by tak­ing the sixth rack to make it 3-3, but again the hosts fin­ished stronger, with Moon­sam­my win­ning the de­cid­ing frame.

On the night, the Bar­code on St Julien Road in Princes Town proved to be a fortress, which the Shot Callers just could not breach. The Dekko All Stars join Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club (twice) and the Top Shooterz Krew as the on­ly teams to de­feat the steam­rolling Rox­bury Shot Callers.

De­spite the loss, the Rox­bury team is still ahead of sec­ond place Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club, but on­ly by games dif­fer­en­tial. While both teams now have 21 wins and 4 loss­es, the Shot Callers lead in games won, 83 to 80. The Cunu­pia-based Rox­bury just needs a win in their fi­nal match to se­cure their first Na­tion­al Pool League ti­tle, and in­ci­den­tal­ly, they will be meet­ing the Top Shooterz Krew in their fi­nal match.

Mean­while, Sikar­i­oz stayed in con­tention with a 3-2 win over the much-im­proved JJ Shoot­ers. An­dre Creece, Sachin Ram­nar­ine and the dou­bles pair of Clint Mara­jh and Dy­lon King were the win­ners for the Sikar­i­oz, while Chris Per­sad and Nicholas Woods won their games for the ‘Shoot­ers’. Sikar­i­oz are guar­an­teed a top two fin­ish, as they are ahead of third-placed Pock­et Preda­tors by three match­es with just one round to play.

The Bri­an Stod­dard-cap­tained Pock­et Preda­tors have se­cured third spot and al­so have a three-match lead over fourth place Crazy 8’s. Crazy 8’s is in a bat­tle for fourth with Ago­ra Stingers, both teams boast­ing fif­teen wins and ten loss­es. Crazy 8’s, how­ev­er, has a su­pe­ri­or games dif­fer­en­tial, 70 to Ago­ra’s 63.

Lucky Sports and Unit­ed Stars round off the top half of the four­teen-team ta­ble with the same record, thir­teen wins and twelve loss­es.

TUES­DAY’S RE­SULTS

ROUND 25

(All sev­en match­es in the round fin­ished with a 3-2 score­line)

Dekko All Stars beat Rox­bury Shot Callers

Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club beat JJ Shoot­ers

Pock­et Preda­tors beat Unit­ed Stars

Ago­ra Stingers beat Crazy 8’s

Scotchie’s Nu­bian Kings beat Lucky Sports

Pan­thers beat Ken­ny’s

Top Shooterz Krew beat Shoot­ing Stars

FI­NAL ROUND FIX­TURES 03-06-2025

Lucky Sports vs Dekko All Stars at Lucky Sports Bar, Williamsville

Scotchie’s Nu­bian Kings vs Pock­et Preda­tors at Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Rox­bury Shot Callers vs Top Shooterz Krew at Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia

Shoot­ing Stars vs Crazy 8’s at Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo

Ago­ra Stingers vs Pan­thers at Raj Restau­rant and Bar, Ca­paro

Ken­ny’s vs JJ Shoot­ers at Ken­ny’s Sports Bar, Ch­agua­nas

Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club vs Unit­ed Stars at Bil­liards Place, Aranguez