The Na­tion­al Pool League (NPL) 8 Ball com­pe­ti­tion is now in­to its 11th week, and not since round three has the Ex­pend­ables tast­ed vic­to­ry. The Andy "Breeze" Sir­ju cap­tained Ex­pend­ables, changed all that on Tues­day, as they se­cured a much-need­ed win, away from home, against the Knight Rid­ers II at the Lucky’s Sports Bar in Williamsville.

The Ex­pend­ables, play­ing in Group A, were im­pe­ri­ous ear­ly on, win­ning the first three games with­out con­ced­ing a sin­gle frame. That bar­rage helped them seal the match with two games still to play. They won the fourth game, lost the fifth but that loss, in no way, would have tak­en away the shine from an ex­treme­ly sat­is­fy­ing night’s work.

The on­slaught be­gan with Reynold Ram­jat­tan tak­ing out Ra­jen­dra Ram­rat­tan 3-nil; it con­tin­ued with Ka­mal Ho­sein re­peat­ing the feat against Brad Ali. The nine-frame sweep end­ed with the dou­bles pair of Rishi Siew­nar­ine and cap­tain Sir­ju, breez­ing to an­oth­er 3-nil win against the home pair of Ty­rone Jit­ta and Ron­nie Ram­saran. That made it nine con­sec­u­tive frames, an amaz­ing way to bounce back af­ter five suc­ces­sive loss­es in match play.

Ri­car­do Son­ny­lal was the first Ex­pend­ables play­er to lose a frame. That came in the fourth game against Kar­daish Gob­indass. Gob­indass took the first and third racks but Son­ny­lal fought back to win 3-2 and stretch the vis­i­tors’ match-lead to 4-0. Justin Jug­mo­han was hop­ing to add fur­ther in­sult to in­jury by com­plet­ing a white­wash but his op­po­nent, the Knight Rid­ers II cap­tain, Rod­ney Ram­lo­gan, was hav­ing none of it. Jug­mo­han won the first rack but Ram­lo­gan hit back to win the next three for the con­so­la­tion win.

In a crit­i­cal group A en­counter, ta­ble top­pers Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club de­feat­ed their clos­est ri­vals, Pock­et Preda­tors 3-2, to take a one-match ad­van­tage over the Bri­an Stod­dard-led Preda­tors. Both teams went in­to round 11 with eight wins and one loss. In the open­er, Dy­lon King did well to come back from a two-game deficit to beat Thakoor Maraj 3-2, Ja­son Ce­de­no stretched the Sikar­i­oz lead with a 3-nil de­feat of the ‘Preda­tors’ cap­tain and Sachin Ram­nar­ine laboured to a 3-1 win over Ker­win Archer in the fourth game.

Preda­tors, who were play­ing at home, had suc­cess in the dou­bles with Stephen Her­nan­dez and Mervin Dun­bar de­feat­ing An­dre Creece and Clint Mara­jh 3-1 and Dane Emanuel de­feat­ed the Sikar­i­oz cap­tain, John East­man, 3-1. With the win, the Sikar­i­oz are now in pos­ses­sion of the best record in the di­vi­sion, nine wins and one loss. The Pock­et Preda­tors would have been hop­ing to take over top spot but their record now stands at eight wins and two loss­es.

In oth­er Group A Match­es: Zhao move up to third with a 3-2 win over Scotchie’s Spar­tans; Spe­cial Brew drop to fourth, hav­ing been on a round 11 bye; JJ Shoot­ers leapfrog Ago­ra Stingers in­to fifth af­ter the two teams met in Cara­pichaima, the ‘Shoot­ers’ com­ing out on top 4-1. Ex­pend­ables (7th), Knight Rid­ers II (8th) and Scotchie’s Spar­tans (9th) oc­cu­py the fi­nal three spots on the group A stand­ings.

In Group B: Orinoco Bloods B are in rare ter­ri­to­ry. For the first time in their de­but sea­son, the San­gre Grande-based ‘Bloods’ are at the top of the stand­ings. In a top-of-the-ta­ble clash, the Orinoco squad de­feat­ed for­mer lead­ers Cue Mas­ters 4-1. The win sees them jump two places up two places with sev­en wins and three loss­es. The Princes Town-based Cue Mas­ters, mean­while, are sec­ond on the ta­ble with six wins and four loss­es.

Cen­tral Stars, who were on a bye, drop from sec­ond to fourth. Knight Rid­ers I moves up two spots to third with a 3-2 de­feat of the Pan­thers; Top Shooterz Krew are now fifth af­ter an im­pres­sive 4-1 win over Crazy 8’s. And Rox­bury Shot Callers, in sixth, de­feat­ed Mu­cu­rapo Mus­ke­teers 4-1. Crazy 8’s, Pan­thers and Mus­ke­teers round off the sev­enth, eighth and ninth spots, re­spec­tive­ly.

Tues­day's (De­cem­ber 2) First Di­vi­sion (Week 12) match­es

Group A

Sikar­i­oz BC vs Knight Rid­ers II at Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Ago­ra Stingers vs Pock­et Preda­tors at Raj Bar, Ca­paro

Spe­cial Brew vs Scotchie’s Spar­tans at Spe­cial Brew, McBean

Ex­pend­ables vs Zhao at Pyra­mid, Gas­par­il­lo

JJ Shoot­ers - Bye

Group B

Cen­tral Stars B vs Pan­thers at Ken­ny’s, Ch­agua­nas

Cue Mas­ters vs Mu­cu­rapo Mus­ke­teers at Bar­code, Princes Town

Orinoco Bloods B vs Crazy 8’s at Reno’s, San­gre Grande

Knight Rid­ers I vs Top Shooterz Krew at Lucky’s, Williamsville

Rox­bury Shot Callers - Bye