M. Squash gains confidence in win

The Penn men's squash team looks like prophets for one of the first times all season. After a tumultuous last week in which the Quakers lost three winnable matches, top players and coach Ned Edwards went out on a limb and predicted a victory over the Naval Academy yesterday at Ringe Courts. Their prophecy came true with an 8-1 win. Everyone looked impressive in their matches and only No. 4 Ian Childs lost. A decisive win at home was just what the doctor ordered for the Quakers (8-3), who have had their confidence rattled recently. "It definitely helps us rebound, having a strong victory," co-captain Craig Rappaport said. "Whenever you have a weekend like we had last weekend, your confidence can be shaken up a little. This is a good win that should help us in the rest of our season." Edwards was pleased with the victory, but the result was almost a foregone conclusion. "We were stronger up and down the lineup," he said. In reality, this was a must win for the Quakers, who have hardly any margin for error after losing to Franklin & Marshall, Trinity and Amherst and beating only Williams last week. Defeating Navy keeps the Quakers ranked in the top nine schools in the country, which is the team's goal heading into the NISRA Team Championship at Princeton later this month. The confidence factor also cannot be underestimated. The Quakers will be tested in this weekend's Ivy League competition not only by Dartmouth, which is a very winnable match, but also by No. 1 Harvard. Under coach Bill Doyle, the Crimson has stockpiled tremendous talent and is dominating its opponents. In the meantime, the Quakers will continue to practice daily from now until Saturday, but the intensity of the workouts will be curbed a bit due to the large number of matches the team has in such a short period of time. Andrew Braff, Penn's No. 2 player, has a lot of faith his team will perform well. He had said before that being a winner is merely a frame of mind, and the Quakers had that attitude going yesterday. "I like this team more than any other that I've been around during my career at Penn," said Braff, a junior. "And this win will help our mindset going into two touch matches this weekend." But don't expect any more prophecies for Ivy League competition, which is never as easy as it seems.