After racing out to a perfect 4-0 start in the Guyana Squash Association’s Farfan and Mendes senior team tournament, the competition finally caught up with the Shorties but not in time to deny them the title.
When the competition climaxed on Saturday the Shorties dipped at the line to edge the Beatles out of the title.
At the end of the competition which began Tuesday, the stats board saw the Shorties and Beatles dead-locked with four team wins each but since Shorties won the head-to-head encounter, they were adjudged tournament champions.
Entering the final day the Shorties – comprising first string, Deje Dias, second string, Jason Ray Khalil, third string, Keisha Jeffrey, fourth string, Kayla Jeffrey and fifth string, Ashley deGroot, were clear favourites to win the tournament but the possibility still existed mathematically for the Beatles to sneak into the centre of the winners’ circle.
To secure their fairy tale win, all the Beatles needed to do was to hope that Shorties lose to Overdrive and that they pick up two games against the Spartans.
Spartans’ third string Ronald Burch-Smith, injured his ankle the day before while playing Ashley Khalil, and would automatically give Beatles third string Allan Downes a walkover.
Two clutch victories would come from Nyron Joseph and Javier Grau who claimed wins against Steven Xavier and Jean-Claude Jeffrey respectively.
Though they were in last position, Spartans would not let up, and the anchor of their team, Robert Fernandes, who played undefeated throughout the tournament, took down Reagan Pollard in three games.
Meanwhile the Shorties undefeated run was slipping away as Deje Dias conceded yet another loss for his team compliments of Overdrive’s Jerozeno Bell while Ashley deGroot succumbed to Victoria Arjoon and Kayla Jeffrey was stunned by Mary Fung-A-Fat, in possibly the biggest upset of the tournament.
Although Jason-Ray Khalil continued to dominate among the other second strings of the tournament, Keisha Jeffrey did not pack enough punch to take down her 2008 Sportswoman of the Year adversary Khalil as team Overdrive redlined to a 4-1 victory over the Shorties.
With both the Beatles and Shorties tied on wins and 14 matches a piece, it came down to the final match which saw Beatles’ Nicholas Narain and Spartans’ Lloyd Fung-A-Fat battling.
With the match tied at 1-1 the Shorties players rallied behind Fung-A-Fat, giving him the confidence needed to hit ‘big time winners’ and get past Narain in a gruelling 17/16 final game.
The final standing of the tournament were: first place Shorties (4 team wins, 14 matches won ), Second place Beatles (4 wins, 14 matches ), Third place Overdrive (two wins, 13 matches), Fourth place Ball Squashers (two wins 12 matches ), Fifth place The Real Thing (2 wins 11 matches) and Sixth Spartans (one win, 11 matches).
The Sportsmanship award went to Samantha Fernandes while Keisha Jeffrey was adjudged Most Valuable Player of the tournament for winning crtitical matches for her team, as explained by tournament coordinator Fernandes.
At the closing ceremony Fernandes thanked the sponsors of the tournament Farfan and Mendes along with the staff at the Georgetown Club, adding that it was certainly an indication that Guyana will perform well at the Caribbean Junior Squash Championships since a senior team tournament can be won by a team of five of its junior players.
