Pock­et Preda­tors and Rox­bury Shot Callers, two of the Na­tion­al Pool League’s (NPL) un­de­feat­ed teams go­ing in­to week five in Di­vi­sion one, were beat­en on De­cem­ber 17 .

Both teams were play­ing at home, which made the loss­es even more re­mark­able. In fact, it was a night where home ad­van­tage count­ed for lit­tle, as four of the sev­en match­es played, were won by the vis­it­ing teams.

At Echo Bar & Lounge, Ch­agua­nas: The di­vi­sion-lead­ing Pock­et Preda­tors were tak­ing on their fel­low Cen­tral-based team, Ago­ra Stingers. The first game was a bat­tle of the Justins, Justin Fran­cis (home) and Justin Chan (away). Chan gave the Stingers an ear­ly lead by beat­ing Fran­cis 4-2. Fran­cis twice led the en­counter at 1-nil and 2-1 but Chan proved to be the stronger play­er down the stretch win­ning three con­sec­u­tive frames.

Clif­ford Sookdeo, de­spite los­ing the first frame to Ganesh Be­dassie, came back to win four straight racks to lev­el the team scores at one each. ‘Preda­tors’ pair of Kirk Ram­sawak and Gre­go­ry Gayadeen were ex­pect­ed to take care of Glen Bridge­mo­han and Christo­pher Mo­hammed but the vis­it­ing pair had oth­er ideas, win­ning the con­test 4-2. Steven Her­nan­dez, one of the home team’s stronger play­ers, did what he was sup­posed to do, win­ning 4-2 against Udesh Har­ri­ram. But with the team scores tied at two apiece, it came down to the game be­tween Bri­an Stod­dard, the Pock­et Preda­tors’ cap­tain, and Ja­van Goolcha­ran. Af­ter the first two frames were split one each, Goolcha­ran was able to win the next three frames to give his team a most sat­is­fy­ing win.

At Rox­bury Sports Bar, Cunu­pia: Rox­bury Shot Callers were al­so not able to de­fend their home turf as the Sicar­ios came call­ing. The Shot Callers would have been hap­py with the draw for play­er match-ups but Rox­bury cap­tain, Raj Per­sad, drawn to play the open­er against An­dre Creece, could not cap­i­talise on the many chances giv­en and even­tu­al­ly lost 3-4.

The sec­ond game saw home­boy Roger Stew­art tak­ing on Mikkel Govia in a game that was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to play fifth. Stew­art, the more ex­pe­ri­enced play­er, stole the first game but Govia hit back with three straight wins be­fore Stew­art won the fifth. Govia was much more com­posed than his se­nior op­po­nent and won the sixth frame to win the game 4-2.

The Shot Callers dou­bles pair of Pe­ter Ga­jai and Akash ‘Knuck­les’ Poon proved to be no match for John East­man and Dy­lon King, as the vis­i­tors made light work of the con­test win­ning 4-0. That win gave the Sicar­ios team the win with two games still to play. The home team’s on­ly suc­cess came in the fourth game when Jonathan Gor­ing need­ed a bit of la­dy luck to beat Sachin Ram­nar­ine 4-3.

Ram­nar­ine had the game sewn up at three each, with a nine in the side pock­et but he failed to con­trol the cue ball, hit­ting three rails be­fore scratch­ing to gift Gor­ing a ball in hand and the win. Ken­rick ‘Mon­ty’ Roop­nar­ine would close things off for the hosts and start­ed in fine fash­ion with a com­bi­na­tion (Tack­le) on the nine to win the first frame. How­ev­er, that would be his on­ly win as Per­sad won the next four frames to com­plete the vic­to­ry.

At Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo: Shoot­ing Stars were look­ing to bounce back from a tough fourth-round loss and many would have bet on them to do ex­act­ly that, es­pe­cial­ly against Ken­ny’s team in search of a first win. Un­for­tu­nate­ly for the ‘Stars’, Ken­ny’s trav­elled with their ‘A’ game, ev­i­denced by wins in the first four games: Sameer Meighoo 4-3; Ken­rick Bachan 4-0; Rocky Ram­per­sad and Vish­nu Teeluck (Dou­bles) 4-2 and Ky­ron Hy­acinth 4-1. The lone ca­su­al­ty for Ken­ny’s was An­dre Lamothe who lost to Ronald Thack­o­ordeen 3-4.

At Bil­liards Place, Aranguez: The fi­nal away win hap­pened at Bil­liards Place, where Scotchie’s Nu­bian Kings were host­ing the JJ Shoot­ers. The ‘Kings’ seemed on course for an easy night, win­ning the first two games com­fort­ably, 4-1 and 4-nil. The vis­i­tors pulled one back in the dou­bles en­counter with a 4-1 win of their own. The Lyn­d­say Whiskey-led Nu­bian Kings had a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to seal the win in the fourth game with Mukesh Ram­nath lead­ing Nicholas Woods 3-1 but Woods dug deep to win three in a row to keep the match alive. Chris Per­sad then fin­ished off a tense hill/hill de­cid­ing fifth game to win it for the JJ Shoot­ers.

In oth­er match­es: Lucky Sports de­feat­ed Unit­ed Stars 4-1; Dekko All Stars beat Pan­thers 3-2 and Top Shooterz Krew beat Crazy 8’s 4-1.

The teams will go in­to the Christ­mas break with Pock­et Preda­tors on top, ahead of Rox­bury Shot Callers in sec­ond with Ago­ra Stingers in third, all three with just one loss in five match­es. Crazy 8’s oc­cu­pies fourth spot with three wins and two loss­es, the same win/loss ra­tio as fifth-placed Sicar­ios, sixth-placed Unit­ed Stars and Dekko All Stars in sev­enth. Lucky Sports is 8th, Scotchie’s Nu­bian Kings 9th, Top Shooterz Krew are 10th and JJ Shoot­ers 11th, all with two wins. Pan­thers, Shoot­ing Stars and Ken­ny’s are 12th to 14th, re­spec­tive­ly, with one win from five.

Di­vi­sion one match­es re­sume on Jan­u­ary 7.