Monday, July 7, 2014

Three team announcements

The Mexican Racquetball Federation held a selection tournament on the weekend to determine its team for the 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games that will be held in Veracruz, Mexico November 14-30.

Representing Mexico in the women's divisions will be Paola Longoria and Samantha Salas, who are the current three time World Champions in doubles and Longoria is the two time singles World Champion.

On the men's side, Alvaro Beltran and Daniel De La Rosa will play singles and Beltran and Javier Moreno will play doubles.

In the women's competition, Longoria defeated Salas in the Women's Singles final with Sofia Rascon third and Lucia Gonzalez fourth. Longoria and Salas defeated Susana Acosta and Rascon in the doubles final.

For the men, Beltran came first in Men's Singles with De La Rosa second, Polo Gutierrez third and Andre Parrilla fourth. Beltran and Moreno beat De La Rosa and Edson Martinez in the doubles final.

Longoria and Beltran are the defending champions in Women's and Men's Singles, respectively, when the championships were held in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

Salas and Moreno are two time defending champions in Women's and Men's Doubles, respectively, but played with different partners in both 2006 and 2010 than they are in 2014. Salas played with Nancy Enriquez in 2006 and Acosta in 2010 while and Moreno's parters were Alejandro Pena in 2006 and Gutierrez in 2010.

Mexico also won the Men's and Women's Team events in both 2006 and 2010.

US Junior Team

Following the US Junior Olympics, USA Racquetball named its Junior National Team that will compete at the 2014 International Racquetball Federation (IRF) World Junior Championships in Cali, Colombia October 19-26.

In U18 singles, the boys will be Adam Manilla and Connor Laffey, and the girls Hollie Scott and Hollee Hungerford with Manilla and Sawyer Lloyd playing Boy's Doubles and Hungerford and Danielle Falvey playing Girl's Doubles.

In U16 singles, the boys will be Mauro Rojas and Wayne Antone IV with Jordan Barth and Justus Benson playing doubles, while on the girl's side it'll be Jordan Cooperrider and Erika Manilla playing both singles and doubles.

In U14, Barth and Akul Ramayani will play Boy's Singles with Ricardo Diaz and Dane Elkins the Boy's Doubles players. Kaitlyn Boyle and Briana Jacquet will play both Girl's U14 Singles and Doubles.

Cheryl Gudinas has been announced as the Interim Head Coach of the US Junior National Team, succeeding Kelly Beane who resigned for personal reasons. Joining Gudinas in Cali will be assistant coaches Jen Meyer, Nick Montalbano and Jody Nance.

Canadian National Team

The Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) is holding a Pan American Sports Festival with the racquetball part of it in in Guadalajara, Mexico from August 2-9. It's a preview of the 2015 Pan American Games that will be held in Toronto, Canada next July. The last Pan American Games were in Guadalajara in 2011.

The Canadian team for Guadalajara will be slightly different from that played at the World Championships last month in Burlington, Ontario.

Samuel Murray and Coby Iwaasa will play Men's Singles with Tim Landeryou and Pedro Castro playing Men's Doubles. Frédérique Lambert and Christine Richardson will be the Women's Singles players with Danielle Drury and Valerie Fallu playing Women's Doubles.

Rino Langelier and Corey Osborne will be coaching the team.

Follow the bouncing ball…

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