Jamaica’s team to the Junior Caribbean Squash Championship departed the island on Thursday for St. Vincent & the Grenadines where the championship will be held between July fifteen to the twenty-third.
The team was selected after a very competitive national junior trials in March. The team members are Girls: Under 11 – Marley Price; Under 15 – Priya Stoddart; Under 17 – Sanjana Nallapati, Mehar Trehan and Elle Wilson, and Under 19 – Savannah Thomson and Katherine Risden. The Boys team members are Under 13 – Cole Brown; Under 17 – Thomas Overton and Lucas Thomson and Under 19 – Tobias Levy, Alex Chen, Rhys Greenland, Arjan Trehan and Brady Holmes.
The team manager is Nathlee Boreland while the two coaches on tour will be national players Tahjia Lumley and reigning national champion Julian Morrison.
The team which include several age group champions are expected to do well at the championship this year. Jamaica boast the Under 15 Caribbean champion in Mehar Trehan, the Under 17 champion in Katherine Risden who moved up to the Under 19 age group. Additionally Sanjanna Nallapati and Savannah Thomson who are both ranked third in the Under 17 age group.
The boys team are also strong especially in the Under 19 category. There are five boys in the group led by national age group champion Tobias Levy. The Under 17 group include the age group champion Lucas Thomson and new comer Thomas Overton who was not a push over during the national trials.
The championship comprises an individual event for boys and girls competing in their age groups of Under 13, 15, 17 and 19 followed by doubles which was introduced for the first time this year. There will also be a team event of boys and girls in Under 13, 15, 17 and two Under 19s.
The first junior Caribbean Area Squash Association Championship was held in 1981 in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. It is therefore fitting though coincidental, that the championship is going home in the year of the death of Sir Arthur Cecil Cyrus, the conceptualizer of the championship.
