Santander Racketeers Academy back to winning ways
Cannell Print moved to the top spot in the A league when they dropped just 2 points in their victory over Crazy Phil Shaw Vehicles. The printers trio of Josh Green, Oliver Wait and James Martin all gained 3-0 victories. At number 5 Rob Colquitt played Crazy and A league new boy Joe Burrows who acquitted himself well but Colquitt won 3-1. The match of the night was between the current second and third ranked island players Crazy Captain Ashley Sandyford-Sykes and Thom Whiteway. They had five thrilling close games with Sykes eventually getting the win 11-9 in the final game.
Team AON claimed maximum points in their victory over Stone Art Squash Team. As we reach the half way point in the season it is super close at the top of the division with AON only 9 points behind Cannell and 3 points behind Argosy Allstars. AON’s Robin and Jason Crease along with Dafydd Lewis all only dropped one game on their way to victories. Liam Davies triumphed 3-0 over his Outcasts team-mate Mark Henson. The match of the night was between Stone Art Captain Steve Baker and Chris Cave. Cave’s main strength is to hang on in rallies and cover the court well, making it very difficult for Baker to win points. After a close match Cave claimed the 3-2 victory against his higher ranked opponent and secured maximum points for AON.
The B league night saw a strong performance by the Sharks, comfortably beating Island Tyres and Exhausts 5-0. Exhausts number one for the night, Rich Cretney, put on a magnificent performance against the much higher ranked Dave Freer, with the latter narrowly walking away with a 15-14 win in the fifth. Another noteworthy performance was at fifth string where Sharks’ Greg Ansara and Exhausts’ Phil Butler battled all the way to five games with the more experienced Ansara eventually taking the victory. Douglas Jacobsson, Dave O’Neill and Alan McNair were the other victorious Sharks players on the night.
Outcasts kept their title hopes alive with a crushing 5-0 defeat of Crowe Dragons. The top trio of Chris Cave, Liam Davies and Mark Henson all won 3-1 while at fourth string Pat Russell had to work a bit harder to win in five games against Beth Jones. Outcasts captain Peter Ginty had a walkover as the Dragons only fielded four players. Outcasts trail the league leaders by only about 70 points so are still in contention to win the B league again.
Unfortunately the match between Argosy Junior Academy and Racketeers Pioneers was postponed for this week. Many of the Junior team have very important exams and revision for these was deemed to be a priority. These junior players are a credit to the IOMSRA Junior Academy and I am sure that I speak for the whole of the IOMSRA community when I say that we wish them all the very best in these exams and hope that they perform to the very best of their ability.
The Hansard Racketeers emerged from an 11-week gap between C League fixtures on Tuesday evening with a 250/187 defeat at the hands of Dandara Falcons. Despite the 5-0 scoreline in the latter’s favour, all of the five match’s ties were closely contested. Newly elevated Falcons’ number one Lance Wyllie came from behind to topple Racketeers’ stalwart Matt Corlett at number one 3-1, while Phil Butler saw off the challenge of Tom Burrows by the same scoreline at second string. Vicky Watterson, Falcons’ skipper Vusimbe Zivave and Simon Jones secured their team’s other victories, the latter coming from two games down against the Racketeers’ David Johnson to edge a ding-dong battle 3/2 at fourth string.
Buchanan and Pitts Misfits had a 3-2 victory over Chrystals Junior Academy despite not being able to field a full team and giving away a walkover at five. John Watterson and Terry Holt both had 3-0 wins while teammate Pat Russell came away the victor of a very close match at number one against Richard Webster. Their similar playing styles and drop shot rallies made for a very good game to watch, with Russell taking the win 3-1. At number two Beth Jones and Andy Dixon also had a good run with four games of lengthy rallies that ended with Beth winning the only match for Juniors this week.
Santander Racketeers Academy got back to winning ways in their match with Outcasts Dragons, Racketeers having only lost one match since Christmas. Fraser Dorling, Harry Douthwaite and Martin Greenwood dropped just one game between them during their winning performances. The Dragons two wins came through the dependable Stuart Highy and Andy McLarney, the latter coming back strongly from 2-0 down to beat Racketeers captain Steve Wright in a close five-game battle. The match score was 3-2, 238-185 to the Racketeers team.
