M. Squash drops two crucial meets

In squash, like in all athletics, talent isn't everything. All the talent in the world will get you nowhere if you don't possess acute mental toughness and an indomitable will to succeed. This weekend, the Penn men's squash team learned it is still a little short on these qualities and not quite ready to compete at the highest level. In a disappointing finish to the most important stretch of its season, Penn (7-3) lost two of three matches over the weekend. Saturday the team split its two matches, losing to host Trinity 5-4 and then beating Williams 6-3. The Quakers traveled to Amherst on Sunday only to lose 6-3 in a match that was much closer than the score reflected. The team used almost the same lineup throughout the entire weekend, with varying results. Steve Scharff, Andrew Braff, Craig Rappaport, Ian Childs and Sanjay Nayar played in the 1-5 spots, while Chris Bradeen, Carl Sibbern, Ed Vincent and Nilay Mehta filled nos. 6-9. Mehta replaced Leif Bergquist after Bergquist lost at Trinity. Things started out well enough against Trinity. The top four spots all won, with Braff and Childs winning two five-game matches. The roster fell apart at the bottom, however, with only Sibbern avoiding a 3-0 shutout. "Trinity is a quality team, but losing in all five of those positions is something that we never thought would happen," Penn coach Ned Edwards said. Later on Saturday, the Quakers defeated Williams in what Edwards called "a bright light in an otherwise dismaying weekend." Scharff, Braff and Rappaport won in the top three spots. Nayar, Sibbern and Mehta also came out on top. Although the team had only split the first two matches, it believed the weekend could still be salvaged with a win in Amherst Sunday. But in Amherst, the unexpected happened -- Scharff and Rappaport lost for the first time all weekend. In addition, Childs, Nayar, Bradeen, and Vincent fell to the Lord Jeffs, making the score Amherst 6, Penn 3. "It was a seesaw battle until the end, and some of the players we counted on didn't come through for us. These guys have to be disappointed all around." Edwards said. Edwards did see some positives come out of this trying experience. He was happy with the play of All-American Scharff, whose only loss was in five games at Amherst. "Steve came close to having a phenomenal weekend, but he shouldn't have lost that last one. I want him to be in the upper tier of All-Americans, but losing matches like that won't get him there," Edwards said. Edwards believes the main problem with his team was its lack of experience in competitive match play. Without the added edge of being in a tightly contested match situation, having to face three challenging opponents in one week was probably too much for the Quakers to handle. "We had tremendously high hopes for this weekend, but it just didn't work out," the disappointed Edwards said. "None of these three teams were more talented than we were, but the ability to win in pressure situations was not well honed."