Seth Thong and An­tho­ny Al­lum won T&T’s first gold medal at the Ju­nior Caribbean Area Squash As­so­ci­a­tion (CASA) Cham­pi­onships when they won the boys’ Dou­bles at the South Sound Squash Club in the Cay­man Is­lands on Wednes­day night.

Fac­ing off with British Vir­gin Is­lands’ Hen­der­son broth­ers, Daniel and Oliv­er, in the eight-team tour­na­ment de­cider, the T&T pair of Thong and Al­lum tri­umphed 11-6, 11-10 in 27 min­utes to se­cure the gold medal.

When the tour­na­ment served off with quar­ter­fi­nal match­es ear­li­er in the day, Thong and Al­lum over­came St Vin­cent and the Grenadines’ Aiden De Fre­itas, and Jay­den George 10-11, 11-7, 11-7 be­fore beat­ing Guyana’s Shiloh As­re­ga­do and Justin Ten Pow, the sec­ond-ranked duo, 11-7, 11-9 in their semi­fi­nal.

The Hen­der­sons slammed Ja­maicans Cole Brown and Max Hen­zell 11-0, 11-2 in their quar­ter­fi­nal fol­lowed by an 11-4, 11-6 vic­to­ry against Bermu­dans An­drew Cox, and Ethan Rosorea in their semi­fi­nals.

In the girls Dou­bles, T&T’s Gia Ghu­ran and Aaniyah Ramdeen were up­end­ed at the open­ing quar­ter­fi­nal stage, 2-11, 0-11 in ten min­utes by Guyana’s Emi­ly Fun­hg A Fat, and Kaylee Lowe and in the Mixed Dou­bles, Ross D’Ju­ran and Josie Thong were oust­ed by Ja­maicans’ Ethan Miller, and Elie Wil­son 8-11, 9-11 in 15 min­utes.

T&T men, women win Team open­ers

The Teams com­pe­ti­tion served off yes­ter­day with T&T get­ting the bet­ter of Bermu­da 22-12 in their boys’ Group A open­er led by wins from Evan Ghu­ran, Ross D’Ju­ran, Thong and Al­lum.

Ghu­ran ral­lied for a 9-11, 11-6, 11-7, 8-11, 11-7 en­ter­tain­ing come-from-be­hind win over Kaiden De Sil­va in their Un­der-11 du­el; D’Ju­ran crushed Ma­son Smith 11-2, 11-3, 11-4 in their U-15 meet­ing; Thong out­classed An­drew Cox 11-3, 11-4, 11-4 in the first U-19 match-up while Al­lum beat Eli Car­pol in the sec­ond U-19 match, 11-5, 11-5, 11-5.

The Bermu­da team got wins from Ben­jamin Sher­ratt, 11-3, 11-5, 11-7 over T&T’s Vitha­la Chat­ter­goon in the U-13 age group and Owen Rosorea, who beat Mat­teo Fe­li­cian 9-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-5 in their U-17 en­counter.

In their sec­ond match yes­ter­day, T&T al­so came up trumps by beat­ing Guyana, 20-13. Thong ex­act­ed re­venge for his loss in the U-19 Sin­gles fi­nal to Louis Da Sil­va with a 9-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-5, 11-6 tri­umph; Ross D’Ju­ran scold­ed Justin Ten Pow in their U-15 match, 11-5, 12-10, 11-1; Fe­li­cian over­came Bren­no Da Sil­va 11-5, 8-11, 11-5, 14-12 in the U-17 di­vi­sion, and Al­lum hum­bled Shiloh As­re­ga­do 11-6, 11-1, 11-5 in the sec­ond U-19s clash.

Guyana got their wins through Zion Hick­er­son, who beat Evan Ghu­ran 11-4, 11-6, 11-4 in their U-11 match, and Ethan Bulkan beat Co­en Mack 11-2, 11-2, 11-1 in the U-13 di­vi­sion.

Guyana had ear­li­er de­feat­ed Ja­maica 25-5, while Bermu­da won against Ja­maica in their sec­ond match.

To­day, T&T boys come up against Ja­maica in their fi­nal pool match.

In Group B, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines beat Cay­man Is­lands 20-11 and British Vir­gin Is­lands 20-10, while the lat­ter out­played Bar­ba­dos 20-13 be­fore the Ba­jans topped Cay­man Is­lands 20-11.

In the girls’ Team com­pe­ti­tion, T&T women al­so start­ed their six-team round-robin se­ries with an im­pres­sive 201-0 beat­ing of Ja­maica.

Josie Thong led the way for T&T via her 11-3, 11-6, 11-9 beat­ing of Priya Stod­dart in their U-17 clash while Aaniyah Ramdeen won her U-15 meet­ing with Carenya Singh 11-4, 11-3, 11-8, and Gia Ghu­ran over­whelmed Mar­ley Price 11-4, 11-3, 13-11 and Lara Al­lum won her U-11 con­test by de­fault.

For Ja­maica, Mehar Tre­han whipped Elise Mathu­ra 11-1, 11-3, 11-3 and San­jana Nal­lap­ti de­feat­ed Saan­vi Chat­ter­goon 11-3, 11-2, 11-4.

Last night, the T&T women faced Cay­man Is­lands, while in the oth­er match­es yes­ter­day, Guyana crushed Cay­man Is­lands 30-2 and Bermu­da, while Bar­ba­dos pun­ished Bermu­da 30-3 and Ja­maica.

To­day, the T&T women play Guyana from 9 am and Bar­ba­dos from 3 pm be­fore end­ing their five-team round-robin cam­paign against Bermu­da on Sat­ur­day morn­ing from 8.30 am.

Dur­ing the in­di­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion, Seth Thong and Gia Ghu­ran se­cured sil­ver medals, while T&T al­so earned two bronze.

Thong was edged in a gru­elling five-set­ter to Guyana’s Louis Da Sil­va 11-9, 6-11, 13-11, 11-13, 11-9 in 72 min­utes in the boys U-19 fi­nal while Gia Ghu­ran went un­der 11-5, 11-0, 11-4 in the Un­der-13 fi­nal against top seed British Vir­gin Is­lands’ Delilah Grace Pease.

Aaniyah Ramdeen got bronze in the U-13 girls’ com­pe­ti­tion as well as her win against Mor­gan Daniel 9-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-7, 14-12 while Josie Thong de­feat­ed Bermu­da’s Somers’ Steven­son in the girls’ U-17 Sin­gles bronze medal match 11-7, 11-2, 11-6.