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Against the odds Guyana set for Jr. PanAm Games
.Coach Ince confident players will gain valuable experience
By Sean Devers
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Junior Boys Squash team qualified for the Junior PanAm Games because of their win at Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) in 2019 since Guyana was unable to participate in the qualifiers due to covid-19 Pandemic.
Coach Ince talks to his charges at his Farm on the Linden Seoesdyke Highway
These games will be held in Colombia from November 25 to December 5, 2021 and the Guyana Squash Association was extended an invitation as a result of being the best Boys team in the Caribbean.
After a mini tournament at the Georgetown Club,18-year-old Shomari Wiltshire, 17-year-old Samuel Ince-Carvalhal and 15-year-old Micheal Alphonso were selected to represent Guyana.
With Carl Ince as National Coach, Guyana won the Junior CASA Championships title for 12 consecutive years before Barbados ended their dominance in 2017 in Guyana’s own back yard.
But as Guyana heads to Columbia, it’s been a tough road for Guyana’s most experienced Squash Coach; made even harder by the covid-19 Pandemic which has made preparing for Columbia a Coach’s nightmare.
“The pandemic has been really challenging. Because of the nature of the game which is played inside a closed court, squash has been suspended for the junior team for 20 months now. It is a huge chunk out of the junior players’ careers.
We had to select a very small number of boys to train due to covid and then they had a lay-off last week. Shomari Wiltshire was selected automatically because of his level of play and the other two spots were given to the winner and second place in the round robin competition.
My grandson Samuel won all of his matches so he earned his place and Mikey won two out of his three matches to take second,” said the Elite Level 4 Coach.
When asked if the time to prepare for such a major tournament was adequate? Coach Ince said not at all. “I would have liked to have had all the time we missed during covid but we have to do the best we can with the time we have. The boys have been putting in some intense work and I’m seeing tremendous progress from them.
I have had to take a different approach to try to get them to peak in such a short time. It’s forced me to use different methods than I usually would, but it’s paid off. They are playing at such a higher standard than they were three months ago. I’m really proud of their progress,” continued Ince.
According to Ince, the trio will be doing more solo work and court runs for fitness but added that there really isn’t time for them to do very much more before they go. “We will be having one more camp next month and we will work on tactical game play among other things to sharpen them up and prepare them for intense matches,” noted Ince.
Usually, the Junior PanAm Games would be for U-19 players but this year it has been altered to U-23’s. “These boys are very young, even for a U-19 tournament at the level of PanAm, so increasing the age to 23 will make it even harder for them but the main thing is that they have the opportunity to represent Guyana and to showcase the standard of squash our boys are playing at.
The exposure and experience gained from playing in such a big tournament will help them to get even better and when they get back we can continue working to get them to reach their potential.” explained Ince.
“We have been training three times a week and they have a fitness session on top of that. They come up to my farm mid-week for a session and I go down to Georgetown on Fridays and Saturdays” informed the Coach, who has a Squash Court on Linden Highway.
They will certainly be competitive. We don’t know how many games they will get, it will depend on the draw and which other countries are going, but I know they will play their best and gain some valuable experience.
Coach Ince feels for the sport to really improve and attract more players it has to be decentralised and for that to become a reality, more Squash Courts are needed outside of the City.
“We are restricted by the lack of courts outside of Georgetown. We have a good number of level 2 coaches now who could travel if we had courts in different regions. I believe the GSA has ordered a portable court to try and take the game further afield, which is a great start. We need investment in the sport to make it accessible to more young and old players who want to get involved in Squash.” concluded Coach Ince.
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