Mya Francois and sisters Aimee and Nicola De Verteuil sisters, produced the performances of their lives, to ensure that team T&T girls, finished fifth overall when the curtains came down in the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Championship at the Racquet Centre of the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair on Saturday.
Team manager Lisa Yearwood said she was impressed with the level of commitment and fight shown by the girls to overcome St Vincent and the Grenadines 4-1 in a fifth/sixth-place playoff match, noting with the right development programme implemented, the country can be the beneficiary of many more medals, trophies and titles locally, regional and internationally.
Francois who lost to her counterpart in the singles matches previously, returned to prevail in the team event against Ciara George in four sets 11-9 11-7 9-11 11-6. Her triumph was followed by another gutsy win by De Verteuil (Aimee) over Jada Ross 8-11 4-11 11-5 11-9 4-1 in the second match before Nicola sealed the win overall by defeating Nadira Morgan 12-10 11-8 11-8.
Meanwhile, the T&T boys failed to cope with their Jamaican counterparts in their fifth/sixth-place match, losing 2-3.
Seth Thong, the country's lone title winner of the tournament to date, was again in winner's row, beating Lukas Thompson 11-2 9-11 11-6 and 11-9. The other win on the night came from captain Joshua Poon, who got the better of Sebastian Levy in three sets 11-5 11-9, 11-3. Outside of that Jamaica's Karan Chatani whipped Michael Chin Lee 11-5 8-11 7-11 12-10 11-7, Karan Dhiman defeated Kobie Khan 11-5 11-9 11-8 and Tobias Levy turned back Scott Shaw 11-5 11-3 11-2.
Yearwood said her boys' team faced its own challenges heading into the tournament but performed with credit in any way.
According to Yearwood, national selectors had to deal with the loss of their top under-19 player Christopher Anthony soon before the start of the tournament, the talented player leaving the country to engage in a Commonwealth programme at the beginning of July. Yearwood said because of this, they have had to replace him, as well as other key players, with players from their development programme.
"I have had to tell my players, however, that they must work harder and smarter because I noticed some of the regional players who were inferior to ours last year, have worked hard, and have done well this time around. I think, apart from the other challenges, that was something for our players to take note of," Yearwood said.