… Barbados take overall team title

DESPITE managing to defend their titles in the men’s and women’s categories, Guyana were unable to sum up enough points to stop Barbados from regaining the overall team title at this year’s Senior Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Squash Championships.Playing with home court advantage, Barbados refused to endure the shame of losing before a home crowd and ended with 24 points to retake the title from Guyana on Saturday evening at Marine Gardens in Christ Church, Barbados.
This counts as the island’s seventh overall team title, and their fourth in five years.
It was last year when the Guyana team, then being the team with the home court advantage, collected the title from Barbados, when the competition played out at the Georgetown Club courts, here in Guyana. Second place for the overall team title went to Trinidad and Tobago after they finished two points behind Barbados.
Trinidad also played second fiddle in the men’s category, where they were demolished 3-1 by the Guyana team, led by Sunil Seth and Richard Chin.
Seth triumphed 3-1 against Colin Ramasra, and Chin took down Kale Wilson. The team’s loss was registered by Robert McDavid who went down 4-11, 6-11, 9-11 against Chayse McQuan, while the team were also kept afloat by wins amassed by Alex Arjoon and Jason Ray Khalil.
Arjoon breezed through a 11-8, 11-6, 11-4 win over Nku Patrick, while it took Khalil four sets to dispose of Don Lee. Saturday’s finals followed the men’s takedown of the OECS team on Friday in the semis, where Guyana won 5-0.
The Guyanese ladies, despite lacking defending women’s singles champion Nicolette Fernandes, proved that they still have a lot of budding talent on the female side.
The Wiltshire sisters Akeila and Larissa proved to be a forced to be reckoned with, and, coupled with the capabilities of four-time junior Caribbean champion Victoria Arjoon the team were able to offset the losses suffered by Mary Fung-a-Fat and Ashley DeGroot to record a 3-2 win over the Barbados women’s team.
In a match reminiscent of the ladies finals, ladies singles finalists Fung-a-Fat and Karen Meakins were at it once again, ending in victory for Meakins this time with a 8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-7 score. DeGroot was also on the losing end of her match when she went down 9-11, 9-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-3 to Nadia McCarthy.
Akeila took on Alex Jordan and won 11-3, 9-11, 11-8, 11-3, while Amanda Haywood could not get past Arjoon and lost 6-11, 9-11, 5-11. Muffin Stollmeyer was defeated 8-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-3, 7-11 by Larissa.