League squash is back after an enforced lockdown break caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

When the season was brought to an abrupt halt in March, teams only had a couple of games left to play in the Isle of Man Squash Rackets Association’s three leagues.

The B League kicked off the resumed action at the NSC courts on Monday night.

Island Tyres & Exhausts took on the Junior Academy team.

On this occasion experience won the day with Exhausts winning 3-2.

Merseyside veteran player Peter Sharples took on Isaac Quayle, a player about a quarter of his age.

He used all his experience to win the pressure points and take the match 3-0.

On the opposite court Liam Townsend took on in-form island player Emma Leith.

Leith’s good run of form continued as she won the match in three close games.

Magnus Lamprecht battled with Emma’s younger brother Ben in the middle string match with Magnus proving a little bit too strong for his youthful opponent, winning 3-1.

The second-string match saw Shaun Wyllie, the player of the season, come up against Harvey Douglas, the junior player of the season. This was a tremendous match with Wyllie eventually taking the fifth game 15/10 to win.

Finally, the number one players took to the court, Steve Baker and junior number one Ben Peach.

They are currently ranked number 13 and 15 in the island and the match was as close as predicted, going all the way to five games, with Ben’s youth eventually making the difference as he took the final two games to clinch the match.

The Racketeers Pioneers showed no sign of rust as they emerged from the lockdown break to score a near-maximum win over B League rivals Dragons on Monday evening.

Pioneers triumphed 246/187 4-1 thanks to wins for Barry Irvine, James Leith, skipper Marc Taggart and number one Daf Lewis.

The latter triumphed in an arm-wrestle of a match with James Martin with two games going to 15/14 in Lewis’s 3-1 victory.

Dragons were competitive throughout, with Leith the only Pioneer to keep a clean sheet in his 3-0 triumph over Dragons’ captain Darren Smethurst.

Securing their only win on the night was number two Dave Hedley, who came from two games down to ensure Rob Boyles’s highly-anticipated return to court ended in a 3-2 defeat.

l The IoMSRA will hold its annual general meeting on Tuesday, July 28 at 7.30pm.

The meeting place has yet to be confirmed but should be finalised in the next few days and will be posted on the Association’s website.

Social secretary Shannon Mylchreest is standing down from the committee so the SRA would be particularly interested in people wanting to take up the role of social secretary. The committee would like to thank Shannon for all her hard work.