Round 18 of the Na­tion­al Pool League on Tues­day, saw the top two teams face off at Bil­liards Place in Aranguez, one hop­ing to cre­ate some dis­tance, the oth­er look­ing to draw lev­el.

Sicar­ios Bil­liards Club were play­ing at home against the on­ly team ahead of them in the stand­ings, the Rox­bury Shot Callers. At the end of the night, it was the Sicar­ios team, which ac­com­plished its goal, com­ing away with a tight 3-2 win.

Sachin Ram­nar­ine was drawn to play first for the hosts against the un­de­feat­ed Jonathan Gor­ing. Ram­nar­ine fell be­hind ear­ly but bounced back to take a 2-1 lead and looked to be giv­ing his team a win­ning start, but Gor­ing was in­tent on keep­ing his un­beat­en streak in­tact, win­ning three frames in a row. Gor­ing, one of the younger play­ers in the league, now has thir­teen wins in thir­teen match­es.

An­dre Creece, Sicario’s sec­ond in com­mand, was next against Bri­an Bis­nath. Creece start­ed well, win­ning the first frame, and de­spite Bis­nath draw­ing lev­el on two oc­ca­sions, Creece nev­er trailed and closed out the game with wins in the fifth and sixth frames.

Clint Mara­jh and Mikkel Govia rep­re­sent­ed the hosts in the dou­bles en­counter against Rox­bury cap­tain Raj Per­sad and vet­er­an play­er Akash ‘Knuck­les’ Poon.

The home duo took a 1-nil lead but fell be­hind 1-2 short­ly there­after. Those two loss­es lit a fire un­der Mara­jh and Govia, and they were able to win three racks in a row, in­clu­sive of a com­bi­na­tion shot on the nine-ball (Tack­le) in the ty­ing fourth rack. With Sicar­ios lead­ing the match two games to one, the host’s Al­lan Per­sad lined up to play Ken­rick.

‘Mon­ty’ Roop­nar­ine. Per­sad set­tled first, win­ning the first two frames. He lost the third but re­stored his two-game cush­ion go­ing ahead at 3-1. Roop­nar­ine re­fused to lie down and fought back to make it a hill/hill en­counter at three each.

Per­sad looked set to win the de­cid­ing frame and seal the match for the hosts, but a lack of con­cen­tra­tion saw him miss a reg­u­la­tion shot on the nine, gift­ing his op­po­nent an easy shot and a mirac­u­lous come-from-be­hind win.

That re­sult made it a do-or-die fi­nal game, and luck­i­ly for the home team, it was their cap­tain cool, John East­man, who would have to bring the vic­to­ry home against an­oth­er vet­er­an of the game, Roger Stew­art. East­man was look­ing good ear­ly and jumped out to a three-nil lead.

Stew­art threat­ened an­oth­er Rox­bury come­back with wins in the fourth and fifth racks, but a foul by Stew­art in rack six gave East­man the eas­i­est of three-nine com­bi­na­tions, which he glad­ly ac­cept­ed. Game, set and match.

Sicar­ios, lev­el with Rox­bury with fif­teen wins and three loss­es in match­es, re­main sec­ond in the stand­ings, two games be­hind.

Third-placed Pock­et Preda­tors are in­tent on stay­ing close to the top teams, and they did so with a com­fort­able 4-1 win against Ago­ra Stingers, away from home at the ‘Stingers’ new home, Raj Restau­rant and Bar in Ca­paro. The Bri­an Stod­dard-led ‘Preda­tors’ have thir­teen wins from eigh­teen match­es, while the ‘Stingers’, who were once a top three team, have dropped down to sev­enth with ten wins and eight loss­es.

Lucky Sports trav­elled to the Pyra­mid Sports Bar in Gas­par­il­lo and came away with a 3-2 win. With the win, Lucky Sports holds on to fourth spot with eleven wins and sev­en loss­es.

Unit­ed Stars, mean­while, con­tin­ue to strug­gle and are eighth on the four­teen-team ta­ble with nine wins and nine loss­es.

Fifth-placed Crazy 8’s, play­ing at their Spe­cial Brew home in Cou­va, had an­oth­er pos­i­tive re­sult, de­feat­ing Top Shooterz Krew 4-1.

Crazy 8’s, an­oth­er team with a ten and nine record, are fifth on the stand­ings. The Top Shooterz are twelfth with six wins from eigh­teen out­ings.

One of the shin­ing lights of the league con­tin­ues to be the JJ Shoot­ers. The Cara­pichaima-based ‘Shoot­ers’ paid a vis­it to Bil­liards Place to take on Scotchie’s Nu­bian Kings and were im­pe­ri­ous, sweep­ing the hosts five games to ze­ro.

So em­phat­ic was the win that of the twen­ty-nine frames played, the vis­i­tors won twen­ty. De­spite the loss, the Nu­bian Kings re­main in ninth po­si­tion with sev­en wins.

In oth­er games: Pan­thers de­feat­ed Dekko All Stars 3-2 at Play­house, Barataria. Pan­thers (7/11) are tenth, and Dekko All Stars are a match be­hind in eleventh spot. In a bot­tom of the ta­ble clash, cel­lar-placed Shoot­ing Stars got the bet­ter of Ken­ny’s 3-2 at Ken­ny’s Sports Bar, Ch­agua­nas.

Shoot­ing Stars have three wins, while Ken­ny’s are thir­teenth with four wins.

Tues­day’s Round 19

Rox­bury Shot Callers vs Ken­ny’s - Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia

Top Shooterz Krew vs Pan­thers - Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Dekko All Stars vs JJ Shoot­ers - Bar Code, Princes Town

Scotchies Nu­bian Kings vs Unit­ed Stars - Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Lucky Sports vs Sicar­ios - Lucky Sports Bar, Williamsville

Pock­et Preda­tors vs Crazy 8’s - Echo Bar & Lounge, En­ter­prise

Shoot­ing Stars vs Ago­ra Stingers - Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo