M. Squash sweeps foes

The men's squash team boosted its record to 4-0 this weekend, defeating Yale 7-2 and Brown 9-0. The Quakers were a bit surprised at the way the contests turned out. "We believed that we could lose to Brown because they are a strong team, and that Yale was a team that we should have defeated without a problem," senior co-captain Andrew Braff said. However, it was Yale that challenged the Quakers the most. Although Penn defeated the Elis by what looked like an easy margin, the matches were actually a lot tighter than they should have been. Many of the matches went to five games when the Quakers expected them to have gone only three, and Penn's bottom five did not perform as well as they could have. "It seemed like they were not fully prepared for their matches," Quakers co-captain Craig Rappaport said. "They may have been too busy thinking ahead to Sunday's contest," against the Bears. Not only were the Bears considered to be the stronger team, but the Quakers also had to change their strategy overnight from the 18.5-foot American court to the 21-foot International court, a surface on which they have not competed often in their college careers. Brown had the added advantage of only competing on these courts. To prepare for this match, the Quakers had an extra practice Saturday night to adjust to the larger court and to perfect their new strategy. Although they feel this added practice helped them to win, they were still surprised that Brown went down so easily. "I was a little surprised at how easily we defeated Brown. We expected them to be much tougher," Braff said. Rappaport credited the performance to intense concentration and a strong desire to beat Brown. "Everyone focused really well on the task at hand," he said. But the Quakers could also look to their experienced international court players as a huge contributor to their defeat of Brown. Their number one player, Shams Mistry, grew up playing on the international court and Penn's next best pair of players have had a fair amount of experience on it. "It was a solid effort all the way through," Rappaport said. Penn still considers the Bears to be the tougher of the two schools and does not believe they will be as easily handled at the season-ending Howe Cup.