Successful day of Table Tennis in Berbice as BHS win team competition

Nov 20, 2015 Sports

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Although the national players from Georgetown and the President of the Guyana Table Tennis Association did not show up as promised, the fourth annual Berbice Table Tennis competition sponsored by overseas based

Guyanese, Berbician Souvenir Ranmdyal, a 2009 Hall of Fame Realtor of Queens New York was successfully held on Saturday last at the New Amsterdam Technical Institute. The tournament, which was organised by the by the Berbice Table Tennis Sub Association (BASA), was scheduled for school children and C class players from the East Berbice area.
A new feature this year was the staging for the first time of the Inter School Table Tennis tournament for the Alton Holder Straker Memorial trophy. Straker was a former Table Tennis player and sports enthusiast who died suddenly. He assisted in coordinating the tournament last year.
The day’s action was intense with keen competition and plenty action in each division which saw over 40 players participating.  Due to the playing of the inter school team tournament for the first time all the individual categories were not completed.
Results of the inter school team tournament saw Berbice High School (BHS) continuing a rich tradition by winning that tournament. In the finals they defeated Guysuco Training School B in the six team’s competition which was drawn from five schools in the East Berbice district. The schools that participated were Berbice High School (BHS), Berbice Educational Institute (BEI), New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI), Skeldon and The Guysuco Training Centre, Port Mourant which fielded two teams.
In results: BHS got the better of Skeldon 4-2.  BEI defeated NATI by a 4-2 margin. The final preliminary games saw GTC/ PM ‘B’ winning from GTC/PM ‘A’ also by a 4-2 margin which earned them a bye to the finals.

In the semi-final match up BHS whipped BEI by a 5-1 margin.
The final between BHS and GTC/PM ‘B’ saw the BHS lads making light work of the opponents for a 4-2 win with Steven Sankar winning from Sampson and Nedd by 2-0 margins and Jadon Conway defeating Nedd and Rankin also by 2-0 margins. However, both Rankin and Sampson were able to defeat Chang by 2-1 margins to put their team on the score card.
The winning BHS team was presented with the winning Alton Holder Straker memorial lien trophy by the wife of Mr. Straker Mrs. Carol Holder.
In the individual category- In the U18 category Safraz Mohammed of Skeldon created an upset when he got the better of some more seasoned players to win that title. In the final he defeated Briton Murray 3-0 winning at 6, 9 and 5.  Mohammed had earlier defeated Vishnu Harrinauth also of Skeldon 2-0, while Murray had won from Conway 2-0 in their semi-final clash. Mohammed defeated Sankar 3-1, Harrinauth won from Isahack 2-0, Conway got the better of Nedd 2-0 and Murray beat Rankin2-0 in quarterfinal play. Conway and Harrinauth were awarded joint third.  Some 16 players participated in that division.
In the 15 and under division Conway got the better of Harrinauth 3-0 winning at 3, 9 and 13. Conway defeated Bates, while Harrinauth had defeated Nedd in semi-final play.  Both Nedd and Bates were awarded joint third with eight players participating.
John Andrews continues to dominate the lower category as he won in the U13 division by defeating Levi Nedd Jr 3-0 with the scores being at 9, 7, 8.  The other players in Rawlin Mangra, John Bates and Vishnu Deo of Skeldon were all given medals for their efforts.
In the presentation ceremony that followed, the top three players in each division received cash incentives, trophies or medals.
A number of other table tennis gear including rackets, ball, rubbers and other apparels were also presented to a number of other players as a form of encouragement for them to continue playing the game.
Sponsor, former Berbice player Souvenir Ramdyal expressed his pleasure in being able to once again come back to his home country. He congratulated the players and had special words of commendation for the winners and outstanding players. He said he was pleased with the standard of play.
He stated that they will be concentrating on the youth and schools from now on and give them an opportunity to earn something, a feat which was not available in his days. He promised to make it bigger and better next time.  He lauded the Berbice Sub Association for a job well done.    Apart from Ramdyal, sponsorship was also had from former overseas based Berbice players Patrick Narine and Lanny Anthony and locally based Floyd Conway.
Conway, who is the President of the BTTA, was very thankful and appreciated of the interest shown by Mr Ramdyal and expressed the hope that more overseas based Guyanese can remember their homeland in some way or the other.
The tournament was coordinated by Conway. He was assisted by former national nine times woman champion Desiree Lancaster and veteran player Brenthnol Richards along with a number of other table tennis enthusiasts. (Samuel Whyte)

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