{"id":181756,"date":"2014-10-13T04:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T18:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=181756"},"modified":"2014-10-13T04:00:06","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T18:00:06","slug":"magic-8-ball-closing-hustlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/magic-8-ball-closing-hustlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic 8 Ball closing in on Hustlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Players<\/a>
Players of Magic 8 Ball (in red uniforms) and National Alamo Car Rental pose for a group photo during a break in their game in the Thursday division of the 2014 SBA Budweiser Open 8-Ball League. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nA victory by the Smoke Pub Magic 8 Ball coupled by a loss by leader Route33 Armatech Hustlers made the final seven weeks of the 2014 Saipan Billiards Association Budweiser Open 8-Ball League a little more interesting.<\/p>\n

The Magic 8 Ball scored a 9-6 win over National Alamo Car Rental (60-60) in the Thursday league to cut Route33\u2019s lead to just one after the Hustlers dropped an 8-7 loss to the Jokers Homeboyz last week.<\/p>\n

Chester Cuento, Rey Hermogenes, Rick Elefante, Rodel dela Cruz and Rico Montano delivered the decisive wins for Magic 8 Ball in their match up to improve to a 72-48 record, just one-win behind the Hustlers\u2019 73-47 mark.<\/p>\n

The Hustlers found the Homeboyz a tough opponent with the latter matching Route33 shot after shot.<\/p>\n

The Homeboyz, which hiked itsrecord to 64-56 to remain at fourth place, went toe-to-toe with the Hustlers and the match was tied at 6 heading into the last three doubles games.<\/p>\n

The Homeboyz went two-of-three with Nolan Cultura teaming up with Joey Lucido and George Lizardo to avenge the loss of Rolly Villanueva and Cesar Sangalang to the Hustlers\u2019 Jerry Soriano and Simeon Kapileo.<\/p>\n

In other Thursday league results, Wild Bill\u2019s (65-55) scored an easy 10-5 decision over the Barcode Breakers (49-71) while the Poseidon Titans (60-60) also had the same scores in a victory over cellar-dwelling Team SCS (37-83).<\/p>\n

In the Tuesday league, the Jokers IT&E Voyagers escaped with an 8-7 victory over Jonny\u2019s Crazy 8, while the Saipan TV Hustlers pulled off a 9-6 win against the Smoke Pub Sang&D\u2019Gang, and the Jokers Str8 Shooters drubbed the Smoke Pub Lancheras, 11-4.<\/p>\n

The Voyagers remain on top of the six-team field with an 81-39 slate, followed closely by the Hustlers\u2019 77-43 card, while the Str8 Shooters are third (75-45).<\/p>\n

Jonny\u2019s Crazy 8 dropped to a 61-59 card, Sang&D\u2019Gang (48-72) fell to fifth, while the Lancheras have so far won only 18 of the 120 games this season to stay at the bottom of the team standings.<\/p>\n

The league will play an additional three weeks for the finals and the Budweiser Cup after the seven-week regular season. (Jon Perez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A victory by the Smoke Pub Magic 8 Ball coupled by a loss by leader…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":181765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}