The final set of matches in Isle of Man Squash Rackets Association’s C League season took place last week.
The C League finished later than the A and B divisions as a result of a rearranged match night caused by the snow disruption earlier this year.
Champions Island Exhausts rounded out their latest title success with a 4-1 win against Hansard Racketeers.
Peter Sharples, Mark Stratford, Gerrit Du Toit and skipper Les Callow ensured the third-tier’s dominant force finished the campaign with a flurry.
Callow was pushed to five games by David Johnson in the game of the encounter.
Racketeers’ skipper Andy Dalrymple picked up his side’s sole win at fifth string.
In their last game of the season Global Monetary Solutions Junior Academy, lacking two players because of exams, took on Strix Squash Squad.
GMS Juniors’ Amaline Batty, back from university, controlled the match against Aaron Rumney from start to finish to win 3-0.
At second seed, Richard Webster faced Strix’s Clare Townsend and edged an extremely competitive match, winning the fifth set 15-13 to register a 3-2 victory.
At number one, Calum Larkin played Strix captain George Rumney but, with Larkin’s attention being more on exam revision, Rumney won the game easily 3-0.
Last year’s champions Falcons have been on a rebuilding exercise this season as they lost several of their top players from last season to the B League.
Buchanan & Pitts edged the Falcons 4-1, with their wins coming from Stephen Pitts, Andy Dixion, Elliot Henson and Lee Whetnall who beat Jon Cox, Sarah Simpson, Joseph Butler and Adam Jones respectively.
The match of the night was between Falcons captain Vusi Zivave and the veteran Pat Russell. The latter played some great squash but a combination of deep and precise drops shots from Zivave sealed the game 3-2 to give Falcons overall victory.
Dragons struggled to field a full team so only three games were played against Crazy Jacks. First game of the night was number one seed Matthew Ripley against Dragons’ Stuart Highy. With some great rallies and technical finishes, the latter came out the winner 3-0.
Next up, Crazy Jacks’ number three Tek Min Ewe played Ben Arthur in four very close games, with the former edging it and winning 3-1.
Last up was number two seed Mark Goodall vs Dragons’ Andy McLarney. Again, these were very close games with powerful and technical shots from both players, but in the end McLarney edged it in the fifth set to win 3-2. Crazy Jacks won 3-2 overall.
This all means that Island Exhaust Vets are the 2022-23 C League winners with a total of 377 points followed by Buchanan & Pitts and then Hansard Racketeers.
The end of the squash season was celebrated last Saturday at the IoMSRA awards evening where the league winners were awarded their trophies.
Strix skipper Rumney won the captain award for his reliability in sending his team’s squash reports each week as well as his constant enthusiasm.
Although the matches have finished, Isle of Man Squash Rackets Association has two clubs every Saturday, one for adults and the other for juniors, where everyone is welcome to join even if they have never played squash but would like to try it.
Visit www.iomsra.com for more information.