The Guyana Squash Association (GSA) has named its junior team to represent Guyana at the Caribbean Area
Squash Association (CASA) Caribbean Junior Squash Championships which will be held in Jamaica July 20-26.
Guyana has won the last seven overall titles at the junior CASA Championships, claiming the seventh in front of the home crowd last year. The majority of the players that were part of that victorious side last year will be eligible to compete this year. However a few key players have outgrown the eligibility requirements.
The boys’ team comprises Shomari Wiltshire (Under 13), Benjamin Mekdeci (U15) Patrick Fraser (U15), Nyron Joseph (U17), Jean Claude Jeffrey (U17), Steven Xavier (U19) and Jason Ray Khalil (U19). For the girls team, Rebecca Low (U13), Taylor Fernandes (U15) Larissa Wiltshire (U15), Akeila Wiltshire (U17), Victoria Arjoon (U17), Ashley deGroot (U19) and Mary Fung-A-Fat (U19).
Additionally Andrew Peroune, Sarah Lewis and the Islam twins Daniel and Anthony will be participating in the individual singles competitions to gain experience.
Team Guyana will be without the services of five-time junior Caribbean champion Keisha Jeffrey, who won the under 19 category last year, as well as her twin sister Kayla, and former junior CASA champions Ashley Khalil and Alex Arjoon. Those players have graduated to the senior level and are no longer eligible to compete in this under 19 tournament.
National coach Carl Ince in an invited comment said that the present team is truly an accurate representation of the best junior players in the country. However, Ince said that the 2011 side was undoubtedly a superior team and even though it is unfair to compare that strong, experienced team to the present team of emerging stars, he was confident that this team will be able to produce another championships win this year. “The team is not as good as the one last year but they are working very hard…” Ince said.
“We’ve been in this situation before; it happens ever so often but our players always compete at a very high standard, so it’s nothing to worry about,” Ince added.
Ince said while it is evident that the services of the Jeffrey twins, Ashley Khalil and Alex Arjoon will unquestionably be missed, many of the other competing territories would have also lostsome of their experienced players.
Additionally, Ince stated that while training is a bit behind schedule at the moment,he has plans to intensify the training schedule to put them back on pace by next week. Team manager Garfield Wiltshire said that the team was selected based on players’ performances at all local tournaments during this year and results supplied from competitions overseas for overseas players as well as results from previous Junior CASA tournaments. Wiltshire also mentioned that the team continues the weekly workout which encompasses fitness training and technical racquet work.
