1st CAC 2018 medal: Fernandes and Khalil take bronze in squash women’s doubles

The dominant duo of Ashley Khalil and Taylor Fernandes created history on Tuesday when they secured Guyana’s first Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games 2018 medal in Barranquilla, Colombia.
Despite not doing so well in their individual matches, Fernandes and Khalil teamed up to form Guyana’s women’s doubles squash team. In their quest to the medal, the dynamic duo defeated Dominique Haywood and Jada Smith-Padmore of Barbados 2-1, but were knocked off the path to the gold medal when they suffered a tough semi-final loss to Maria and Laura Tovar of Colombia.
The men’s squash team also had a bit of luck when they defeated Panama’s team.

Jason Ray Khalil had a 3-0 win over Adrian Padro while Seth Sunil experienced the same fortunes against David Gonzalez. They are expected to come up against the Jamaican team today. A women’s team will also have a match-up today with Colombia.
Over in the pool, two of Guyana’s athletes swam their hearts out in their two events. Andrew Fowler clocked 27.01s in his 50-metre butterfly event while Jamila Sanmoogan registered 1.03.93 in her 100m freestyle. They will hit the pool again tomorrow for the men’s and women’s 50m freestyle.
In the taekwondo arena, Guyana’s Adrian Spelling missed out with a loss to Mexico’s Bryan Salazar.
After a thrilling victory over the Dominican Republic during the weekend, the national men’s hockey team went into their encounter with Mexico full of confidence, hoping to defeat the bronze medal squad.
In the beginning of the match-up, Guyana displayed high levels of determination, executing strong defence tactics which surprised the otherwise indestructible Mexican team. In a twist of fate, Mexico managed to break down the Guyanese defence which set up their first goal from Francisco Aguilar a little before half time. The Mexican team were much better in the second half, registering two more goals, a feat the Guyanese team could not manage.
However, the national team’s semi-final dreams are not over since they still have one more chance to make it. They will compete with Guatemala today, in a deciding game.
On the other hand, the female national hockey team lost their last match to Mexico 2-0 on Wednesday, which means they will not advance out of the pool-play stage.