Guyana’s junior national squash team was scheduled to depart this morning en-route to Jamaica for a chance to compete for their eighth-straight title at the Caribbean Area Squash Association’s (CASA) Junior Squash Championships which will be held from July 20th -27th.
The players that will be representing Guyana in the team tournament this year are Shomari Wiltshire and Rebecca Low in the Under 13 category (U13), Benjamin Mekdeci, Patrick Fraser, Larissa Wiltshire and Taylor Fernandes (U15), Victoria Arjoon,Akeila Wiltshire, Nyron Joseph and Jean Claude Jeffrey (U17) Ashley deGroot, Mary Fung-A-Fat, Steven Xavier and Jason Ray Khalil U19.
The team will be captained by national Under 19 champions Khalil and Fung-A-Fat. Level Four Elite coach Carl Ince will be functioning as the head coach of the team once again this year while Tiffany Solomon has been named the assistant coach. Former national player Garfield Wiltshire is the team manager while Deje Dias will be functioning as assistant manager.
President of the Guyana Squash Association (GSA) Andrew Arjoon was pleased to inform this newspaper that Dias, who was the junior team’s captain and his son Alex Arjoon who recently won his second national senior title, has committed to assisting the younger players at this tournament. The GSA president said he feels that this will be tremendously beneficial for players who have competed at that level to give the sort of guidance and mentorship to this relatively young side as they compete at the prestigious regional event.
Speaking in terms of their preparation during the past few month, Arjoon said, “They have been through their usual rigorous preparation and I am confident that they will perform creditably well. I expect them to provide their usual sterling performances”
The individual category of the tournament begins on Friday and Guyana has a total of 20 players that will be competing in this segment of the tournament. Guyana made it to seven of the eight finals in the individual categories last year and came away with five individual titles. Four of the five title winners Mekdeci, Akeila Wiltshire, Joseph and Khalil will be competing this year.
Four-time Caribbean champion Victoria Arjoon will be competing in the U17 category this year and hopes to avenge her loss in the finals to Trinidad and Tobago’s Charlotte Knaggs.
Fung-A-Fat is also a three-time champion at this event and will be looking to claim her fourth this year. Apart from winning the national under 19 title, Fung-A-Fat has been in superb form in recent months and was recently the runner up to Nicolette Fernandes in the Digicel Senior National Championships close to two weeks ago. Degroot has also displayed top form as of recent, defeating five-time Caribbean champion Keisha Jeffrey in four games at the Nationals. Degroot, who is also a national hockey player, has never won an individual Junior CASA title and said that she will be going all out in this her final year at the event to claim her maiden Caribbean title.
Apart from the 16 players that were chosen to compete in the team tournament, Daniel and Anthony Islam (U13), Sarah Lewis (U13), Alec Melville (U15), Andrew Peroune (U17), and Gabrielle Fraser (U17) will be competing in the individual categories of the tournament.The team tournament is scheduled to begin on Monday and conclude on Thursday July 26th.
