Shomari Wiltshire enjoys good stint in the US

Sep 17, 2017 Sports, https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...ood-stint-in-the-us/

Caribbean U15 & National Junior Squash Champion Shomari Wiltshire recently ventured to the USA and played in two tournaments. Tournaments in the USA are ranked as follows: Junior Championships (JCT), then followed by Gold, then Silver and finally Bronze. Points are gained from participating in each of the tournaments with the highest points being received from playing in the JCT, then next the Gold, then the Silver and finally the Bronze.
The first weekend he participated in the Berwyn Summer Silver in Pennsylvania. This tournament was used as a warm up for the following weekend and as it was a silver tournament he was entered in the Boys Under-17 category and not the Boys Under 15. He won his first match beating Atreyus Bhavsar 11 – 9, 11 – 7, 11 – 1 but then lost to Nolan Gelinas 10 – 12, 3 – 11, 13 – 11, 6 – 11 in the second round.
This loss resulted in him going into the consolation tournament where he then beat Sean Roundtree in his first match 11 – 2, 11 – 4, 11 – 6. In the next round he defeated John Gunton 11 – 1, 11 -4, 11 – 3 and then in the semi finals he defeated Matthew Wang 11 – 6, 11 – 2, 11 – 2. However in the finals of the consolation draw he lost to Neil Bam in straight games 9 – 11, 4 – 11, 8 – 11.
The Finger Lakes Gold was held in Clinton, New York at the Hamilton College. This was a gold tournament but because Shomari has no US ranking he was unseeded in the Under-15 division. Only the top thirty two ranked players who have signed up for the tournament are automatically placed in the draw so Shomari was initially waitlisted but eventually four players withdrew and he was placed in the draw.
In the first round he defeated John Zhang 11 -7, 11 – 4, 11 -4, then beat Erik Wang 4 – 11, 11 – 2, 11 – 9, 11 – 5 in the second round to set up a clash with the 3/4 seed Nathan Feinstein in the quarter finals. In the quarter finals he beat Nathan Feinstein in straight games 11 – 8, 11 – 8, 11 -3 and then took care of the No 2 seed Winston Park 11 – 8, 11 – 3, 11 – 5 in the semi finals.
In the finals he came up against No 3/4 seed Rana Thakkar who had upset the No 1 seed in his semi final match. Rana won a close first game 11 – 8 but then Shomari bounced back to take the second game 11 – 6. In the third game Rana came out like a boy possessed and completely destroyed Shomari in this game winning it 11 – 2.
The fourth game went back and forth with Rana having three match balls but just could not close out the match with Shomari really digging deep to eventually prevail in the fourth game 16 – 14. The fifth game also was a see saw battle which was close throughout but eventually Shomari would prevail on his first match ball to take the game 11 – 9 and the match three games to two to win his first US tournament.