Doyle wins Caribbean Squash title in Cayman

SVG’s junior squash players have returned home after another successful outing{{more}} at the Caribbean Junior Squash Championships in the Cayman Islands. The players were members of the OECS Team and were sponsored by the National Lotteries Authority. The team was managed by senior national player Kevin Bailey.

The most outstanding performance came from 12-year old Jason Doyle, who claimed the Boys Under 13 title after defeating 3 Caymanians along the way and the 5th-seeded Jamaican Cameron Anderson. After racing through in the earlier rounds without dropping a single game, Doyle was forced to come from behind in his 11-6, 7-11, 8-11, 11-6, 11-3 victory over #4 seed Julian Jervis in the final.

Top 4 finishes also came from Demi Ollivierre (placing 3rd in the Girls Under 13) and Romario Constance (4th place in Boys Under 17), the only unseeded player to make the semi-finals. In other age groups, Jules Snagg finished 5th in the highly competitive Boys Under 19 while Gianna Miller-Alexander settled for 8th in Girls Under 15.

Following the individual event, the Vincies joined players from BVI to represent the OECS in the team competition. The Girls team found the goings tough, but finished on a high note after crushing Bahamas 5-0 in the 7th place play-off. The Boys team however, claimed their 4th top 4 finish in 5 years, despite missing 2008 Under15 Caribbean Champ and Runner Up 2009, Kevin Hannaway.

In the Pool stages, they recovered from a 1-4 loss to Trinidad and Tobago in the opening tie to overcome Jamaica 3-2 and dismissed Barbados 5-0. In the semi-finals however, they fell 0-5 to the Cayman Islands, disheartened by a crucial straight-game loss by Doyle to Iain McCallum, whom he had earlier beaten in the individual semi-finals. The Boys team of Doyle, Snagg, Constance and BVI’s Stefan Joseph and Rory Thornton regrouped admirably in the 3rd place play-off however, narrowly going down 2-3 in a rematch against the Trinidadians.

In an attempt to repeat their bronze medal performance of 2009, Doyle repeated his 3-0 win over Chad Salandy, while Snagg turned the tables on Caribbean Under 19 no. 3 Kale Wilson in a 11-3, 11-5, 11-9 victory. As Thornton and Joseph went down in straight games, Constance very nearly clinched the bronze medal in a hard-fought 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 8-11, 4-11 loss to Mandela Patrick (whom he had already lost to twice in the tournament). Team OECS hopes to continue it’s upward rise in the Caribbean Junior ranks as it prepares for the 2011 edition of the event.