T&T’s Josi­ah Hills came up short in his bid to win the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Ten­nis of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (COTECC)/Ju­nior/In­fan­tile Ten­nis In­ter­na­tion­al Cham­pi­onships (JITIC) Un­der-14 Tour­na­ment fi­nal in San­ta Tecla, El Sal­vador, on Thurs­day.

Fac­ing off with top-ranked Mex­i­can Patri­cio Al­varez, the sec­ond-seed­ed To­bag­on­ian Hills was over­pow­ered by his much stronger op­po­nent and went down 1-6, 2-6.

De­spite the loss, Hills guar­an­teed him­self a spot in the COTECC Mas­ters Tour­na­ment to end the sea­son for the sec­ond time in his ca­reer.

In the semi­fi­nals on Tues­day, Hilsl came from be­hind to oust fourth-seed­ed Hon­duran Samuel Romero Flo­res Ni­eto, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, and Al­varez won his semi­fi­nal, 6-1, 6-1, against Cos­ta Ri­can Samuel Romero Leon.

It was the sec­ond time Hills had fall­en to Al­varez in a fi­nal for the year af­ter both play­ers met in Cos­ta Ri­ca in Jan­u­ary, with Al­varez com­ing away with a 6-2, 6-1 win on clay courts.

Ear­li­er in the draw, Hills dumped Mex­i­co’s Luis Car­los Her­nan­dez 6-2, 6-0 in their quar­ter­fi­nal at the El Sal­vador Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion Hard Courts af­ter he had com­plet­ed a per­fect 5-0 round-robin win-loss record in Group Two with a straight­for­ward 6-0, 6-0 win over Hon­duran Paulo Al­varez be­fore he dis­patched Cos­ta Ri­can Fabi­an Pozue­lo 6-0, 6-1 in their main draw round of 16.

How­ev­er, in the main draw boys’ dou­bles semi­fi­nal on Mon­day, Hills and Bar­ba­di­an Zane Kir­ton were stopped by Al­varo Ba­nales and Car­los Car­ran­za of Mex­i­co, 6-4, 1-6, 6-10, af­ter they won their quar­ter-fi­nal over Cos­ta Ri­cans Ale­jan­dro Gon­za­lez and Ju­lian Morales 6-1 and 7-6(4).