Of the record-set­ting 18 teams in Groups A and B of the Na­tion­al Pool League (NPL) first di­vi­sion, there are five un­de­feat­ed teams af­ter two weeks of in­tense com­pe­ti­tion.

Three of those teams have played a full com­ple­ment of two games, while two teams were not on the sched­ule in the sec­ond week. Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club and Zhao are the fron­trun­ners in Group A, while Cue Mas­ters are on top of Group B. Group A’s Spe­cial Brew and Cen­tral Stars of Group B both won their open­ing match­es in week one but were in­ac­tive in the sec­ond week of com­pe­ti­tion from Sep­tem­ber 23-24.

Group A: Sikar­i­oz BC man­aged to get past Pock­et Preda­tors, their bo­gey team from the pre­vi­ous Nine Ball league. Dur­ing the nine ball com­pe­ti­tion, the Pock­et Preda­tors were the on­ly team to beat Sikar­i­oz twice. On Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 23), how­ev­er, the Bil­liards Place-based Sikar­i­oz turned the ta­bles on the ‘Preda­tors’ with a 4-1 home win. Clint Mara­jh got the home team off to a win­ning start, de­feat­ing the ‘Preda­tors’ cap­tain, Bri­an Stod­dard, 3-2 in a close game. Dy­lon King could not dou­ble his team’s lead and was out­classed 1-3 by Stephen Her­nan­dez.

The Sikar­i­oz cap­tain, John East­man, was paired with Sachin Ram­nar­ine for the sec­ond week in a row, and af­ter los­ing their league open­er, came up trumps this time around via a 3-2 win against the dou­bles pair of Dane Em­manuel and Ker­win Archer. Ja­son Ce­de­no, who is mak­ing his NPL de­but, con­tin­ued his win­ning ways, de­feat­ing Ter­ry Alex­is 3-nil and An­dre Creece, the Sikar­i­oz sec­ond in com­mand, put the ic­ing on the cake with a 3-nil win over Justin Fran­cis.

Zhao, one of the new names in the league, play­ing out of the Pyra­mid Sports Bar, has al­so start­ed well and fol­lowed up its 3-2 win away against Knight Rid­ers 2 with a sim­i­lar 3-2 re­sult at home against the Scotchie’s Spar­tans. Es­san Whiti­er gave the hosts a one-nil lead, de­feat­ing Ger­ard Portell 3-0; Clarence Ja­groops­ingh suc­cumbed to Shameel Sa­boo 1-3 to see the scores tied at one apiece.

Steve Ja­groops­ingh and Naresh Bal­go­b­in made it 2-1 in favour of the hosts, beat­ing the pair of An­tho­ny John and Lind­say Whiskey 3-2; Mukesh Ram­nath kept Spar­tans in the match with a 3-1 win against Zhao’s Sachin Sookdeo and Sase­nar­ine en­sured the home team re­mained per­fect with a 3-nil shutout of Joey Teemal.

In oth­er Group A re­sults: Ago­ra Stingers def JJ Shoot­er 4-1 and Lucky’s Knight Rid­ers II edged Ex­pend­ables 3-2.

Mean­while, in Group B, the Cue Mas­ters made home ad­van­tage count as they de­feat­ed Orinoco B 4-1 at the Bar­code in Princes Town. Ka­reem Khan, who opened the in­nings for Cue Mas­ters, was the on­ly ca­su­al­ty, los­ing to Videsh Nan­coo nil-3.

All oth­er sin­gles match­es were 3-0 shutouts for the hosts as Di­nesh Ba­boolal de­feat­ed Mar­vin Wil­son, Ryan Son­ny took out Shaquille Ra­han­na and Hec­tor Par­ra beat Kyle De­osaran. The host's tough­est con­test came in the third game, the dou­bles, with Pra­ha­l­ad Ramhit and Yovan­ny La Rosa be­ing pushed to five frames by Joel Mark and Car­los Hors­ford.

In oth­er Group B match­es: Crazy 8’s and Rox­bury Shot Callers had the biggest wins of the round. Crazy 8’s def Top Shooterz Krew 5-0 and the Shot Callers of Rox­bury, the cur­rent nine ball first di­vi­sion cham­pi­ons, beat the vis­it­ing Mu­cu­rapo Mus­ke­teers al­so by a 5-0 mar­gin. The Mus­ke­teers are one of six teams mak­ing their de­but in the di­vi­sion.

In the Pre­mier di­vi­sion: Cen­tral Stars, Unit­ed Stars, The Mer­ce­nar­ies and Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club are the un­de­feat­ed teams af­ter two match­es, all with two wins from as many match­es. Ri­valz, who were on a bye, are al­so un­de­feat­ed but have on­ly played one match.

The Stars of Cen­tral, how­ev­er, lead Unit­ed Stars by virtue of a su­pe­ri­or games’ dif­fer­en­tial. Af­ter a close 3-2 win in week one, the Jesse Gan­garam-led Cen­tral Stars opened up against the Princes Town Un­der­dawgs, win­ning 20 frames out of 25 for a com­fort­able 5-0 vic­to­ry at their Ken­ny’s Sports Bar home­base. Unit­ed Stars, on the oth­er hand, start­ed off with a 4-1 win in week one but was tak­en to a de­cider by one of the new­er teams in the UD As­sas­sins at their Lucky Sports Bar strong­hold. Unit­ed Stars cruised to a 2-0 lead, on­ly for the As­sas­sins to bounce back and tie things up at two each. Ke­shawn Rod­ney was the hero for the hosts, win­ning the fifth game 5-nil.

In oth­er match­es: The Mer­ce­nar­ies de­feat­ed Orinoco A 3-2; Sikar­i­oz BC edged Cen­tral Pre­mier Pool Club 3-2; Rox­bury Hus­tlerz downed Scotchie’s Spar­tans 3-2 and in a resched­uled match on Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 23), Shoot­ing Stars beat The Un­touch­ables 3-2.

Match­es

Sep­tem­ber 30

First Di­vi­sion

Group A

Knight Rid­ers 2 vs Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club, Lucky’s Sports Bar, Williamsville

Pock­et Preda­tors vs Ago­ra Stingers, Ah Boi Sports Bar, San Juan

Scotchie’s Spar­tans vs Spe­cia­lo Brew, Shindig Sports Bar, Curepe

Zhao vs Ex­pend­ables, Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo

Rox­bury Shot Callers - Bye

Group B

Pan­thers vs Cen­tral Stars B, Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia

Mu­cu­rapo Mus­ke­teers vs Cue Mas­ters, On Mu­cu­rapo, St James

Crazy 8’s vs Orinoco B, Spe­cial Brew, Cou­va

Top Shooterz Krew vs Knight Rid­ers 1, Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Cue Mas­ters – Bye

Oc­to­ber 1

Pre­mier Di­vi­sion

Rox­bury Hus­tlerz vs Up­per Deck As­sas­sins, Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia

Unit­ed Stars vs Shoot­ing Stars, Lucky’s Sports Bar, Williamsville

Sikar­i­oz Bil­liards Club vs The Un­touch­ables, Bil­liards Place, Aranguez

Orinoco Bloodz A vs Scotchie's Spar­tans, Reno Bil­liards, San­gre Grande

Princes Town Un­der­dawgs vs The Mer­ce­nar­ies, Lucky’s Sports Bar, Williamsville

Cen­tral Pre­mier Pool club vs Ri­valz, Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia

Cen­tral Stars - Bye