Last week saw the last set of matches for the C league’s 22/23 season. The C league finished later than the A and B due to 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, MarkStratford, 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, the Global Monetary Solutions Junior Academy, lacking 2 players due to exams, took on Strix Squash Squad. GMS Junior’s Amaline Batty, back from university, controlled the match against Aaron Rumney from start to finish to win 3-0. At 2, 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 1, Calum Larkin played Strix’s captain George Rumney, but with Calum’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 the Falcons’ captain Vusi Zivave and the Veteran Pat Russell. Pat Russell played some great squash, but a combination of deep and precise drops shots from Zivave sealed the game 3-2 to give the Falcons overall victory.
The Dragons struggled to field a full team so only 3 games were played against Crazy Jacks. First game of the night was No 1 Matthew Ripley against Stuart Highy. With some great rallies and technical finishes, Dragons’ Stuart came out the winner 3-0. Next Crazy Jacks’ No 3 Tek Min Ewe played Ben Arthur.
These were four very close games with Tek edging it and winning 3-1. Last up was No 2 Mark Goodall vs Dragons’ Andy McLarney. Again, these were very close games with powerful and technical shots from both players. Andy edged it in the 5th set to win 3-2. Crazy Jacks won 3-2 overall.
This all means that Island Exhaust Vets are the 22/23 C league winners with a total of 377 points followed by Buchanan & Pitts and then Hansard Racketeers.
C League winners Island Exhaust Vets (left to right): Gerrit du Toit, Mark Stratford, Les Callow, Phil Shaw and Peter Sharples.