Al Kabeer Frozen Foods and Advance Co. Engineers formalized their 1-2 positions and Habagat rounded out the top three finishers during the positioning round at the end of eliminations in the Thursday League 12th Conference for Globe Cup at the Bowling City in Sultanah Center here.

Al Kabeer, Advance and Habagat became the top three waiting teams for the stepladder championship where a further three teams will join them in a six-team cast after a knockout game of three handicap series featuring the remaining six teams in the field.

In the first match of the stepladder teams 4, 5 and 6 knock each other out in two games with handicap with the winner to advance to the second match against No. 3 Habagat for the right to meet second seed Advance in another knockout game that will decide the challenger to No. 1 finalist Al Kabeer in a twice to beat format championship match.

In the only significant battle for a top three spot Habagat edged Alliance in Global Motion and Al Murjana in a three-way contest by returning the positioning round’s top score of 32 points.

Murjana was 7 points adrift on 25 and Alliance, which held a slim lead over Murjana and Habagat at the start of this 19th session, dropped out of contention on 20 points, right behind D’ Barkads 23.

In other positioning round results, Al Kabeer had 26 points at second place on the night, Jeddah 5KKB 18, Lifebuoy 16, Bulacan Knight 12 and Advance Co. 8.

Rommel Cagampang and Richard Antonio struck hardest for Habagat on 685 and 660, as their team bucked a slow start to go second-first-first in the last two games and overall output.

Med Ramos was the other Habagat player to complete three games on 555 while with two games each were Edu Toledo 192-202, Geo Mangaliman 183-183 and Manny tibay 153-176.

In its last game prior to the championship Kabeer looked to have maintained its top form with skipper Igna Salgado and Jay-R de Dios hitting a pair of 617s. Jowett Carrion added 579, Daryl Loquias 528, Mohd. Al Amari 194-170 and Bandar Al Dosary 180.

Murjana, owner of the only pefect double in the tournament, drew 642 from Melvin Lising, 611 from Ruel Santoc, 599 from Jojie Manalansan and 588 from Jay Bengco.