By Iva Wharton
Trinidad and Tobago yesterday retained the team Caribbean Scrabble Championship when they defeated Barbados 27 games to nine to bring an end to the team aspect of the Caribbean Championship played at the Bank of Guyana building.
Trinidad finished on 43 points ahead of Guyana’s 34 while Barbados was again third with 31 points.
Trinidad’s Captain Brian Yates said that they started shakily and were well beaten by Guyana.
“We went home and licked our wounds and resulting from the outcome of Guyana’s match with Barbados yesterday (Friday) we then realized that we had a major deficit to clear and that deficit was to accumulate at least 22 games today (yesterday) to add to our 16 from Thursday and that would have brought us to 38 and we could have beaten Barbados who had beaten Guyana the day before.”
Yesterday’s outcome he said was a result of tactical and strategic planning.
“We had gone through the playing patterns of each of the Barbadian players and we had also identified their two strongest players and decided that we would target those in particular because they would have been the linchpin of what would have turned out to be a Barbados victory.”
Barbadian Captain Lorton Graham said that he believes his team did pretty well as they entered the championship with a chance of actually winning but said against failed against the mighty Trinidadians.
“We just had to draw with them to win the tournament but the tiles spoke the language of perils and we folded. So while we had hopes and dreams of winning we found ourselves in the shadow position at the end of the day.”
Guyana’s Captain Abigail McDonald said that their team performed creditably but said they fell down in their loss to Barbados. She said that they never underestimated Barbados.
“That being said we need to go to the drawing board again because it’s very difficult to play under certain conditions. We were working up until the ninety-nine hour.”
McDonald said it would be difficult to say what went wrong but nevertheless said that it her belief that some of the players were tired from the hard work they put in. According to her if the players were rested then their performance might have been different.
The championship started last Thursday and culminates today with the individual championships.
