Jamaica determined not to finish off podium at CASA Championships ever again
Published:Tuesday | August 29, 2023 | 12:09 AMOrane Buchanan/Staff Reporter
FRESH off their fourth-place finish at the recently concluded 2023 Senior Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Championships in the Cayman Islands, President of Jamaica’s Squash Association, Karen Anderson, said that work is already being done to ensure that the country is always among the medals at future championships.
“We’ve started the planning for that already as we’re going to continue with our strength and conditioning and put in some serious work in the pre-season. We’ve actually confirmed a camp, for early December, for our senior and junior players to continue their off-season work and put in the court work required to getting us to the next level,” she stated.
Jamaica grabbed a total of three medals inclusive of a gold (mixed doubles) and two bronze (women’s doubles and men’s doubles) at the championships. President Anderson and Mia Todd secured the bronze medal in women’s doubles following their 11-3, 11-6 victory over the British Virgin Islands pair of Mandi Atack and Zoe Sorrentino. Anderson stated that she was pleased with the overall performance of the Jamaican team.
“We were pretty pleased with the performances, and what was good to see is that we had some tough battles. We lost some pivotal matches, especially against Bermuda and Barbados, but nobody gave up, and everybody fought to the bitter end. We were thrilled from that perspective, obviously not happy that we lost and came fourth overall, but I think there’s a lot that we can build on,” she said.
Despite the good work, which required a total team effort, Anderson, in retrospect, felt the team could have collected more medals as the team had some tough losses, including losing to rivals Barbados at the semi-final stage of the men’s doubles.
“I think we could have grabbed a little bit more at the championship. We had a tough loss in the semi-finals of the men’s doubles against Barbados, who we lost to last year. The match was filled with thrills and excitement, and I thought we could have reached the finals in that one,” she added.
Anderson believes the young crop of squash players that Jamaica has in training augurs well for the future of the sport.
“We have a good crop of young girls, and some young boys are coming up that we’re excited about. Our girls did really well at the Junior Caribbean Championships in July, and they’re all returning to Junior CASA next year, so they will be seasoned and ready to go,” Anderson said.