Hunsicker honored at Howe

Not only did Penn prove itself to be one of the best women's squash teams in the nation at last weekend's Howe Cup -- the nation's most important collegiate squash tournament -- but it also proved to have the country's finest individual. At a banquet Saturday night held for all 27 teams invited to the Howe Cup, Quakers senior Lissa Hunsicker was awarded the nation's highest individual honor, the Betty Richey Trophy. The award is voted on by each team's current captains and coaches and is given to the collegiate squash player "who best exemplifies the ideals of squash in her love of and devotion to the game, her strong sense of fairness and her excellence of play." Nobody in the Penn history had ever won this prestigious award before Hunsicker. "It's such an honor," said Hunsicker, whose No. 3-seeded Quakers went 3-1 during the weekend to finish fifth. "It was a great way to end my squash career. "Squash has been a huge part of me. I really didn't expect it. A lot of people deserved it, in intercollegiate squash and on the team, who have done a lot for the sport." Hunsicker, along with freshman teammates Jessica DiMauro and Dana Lipson did not lose a match all weekend. Friday morning, the team played Trinity, who the Quakers beat in a close 5-4 match in the regular season, beating them, 6-3, this time around. Penn junior Abi Hopkins, who used to play for the Crusaders, won her match in four games. "It was hard to play against people you used to play for," Hopkins said. "But it was a really great win for me." A few hours later, Penn faced a strong Dartmouth team, who the Quakers also had beaten 5-4 earlier in the regular season. But this time the Quakers lost, 5-4, to the Big Green. "We should have beaten Dartmouth, but we were kind of discombobulated," Hunsicker said. "There were a lot of matches going on at once, and it's hard to play your game in such a chaotic atmosphere." The next day, the Quakers were excited to play Princeton, who they lost to 7-2 just a week and a half prior to the Howe Cup. The Quakers managed to take four matches from the Tigers, but still lost 5-4. "We handled [the Princeton match] differently," Penn senior co-captain Jenna Bertocchi said. "We wanted to show them that we're a good team, that we could beat them." Lipson, one of the four Penn players to register wins against the Tigers, beat her rival Elise O'Connell in three games. The last time Lipson played Princeton, she had to forfeit in the fourth game after winning the first two due to an injury. Junior Elissa Helt also won her Princeton matchup in a five-game match that lasted 1 hour, 20 minutes. The Quakers finished off the weekend Sunday with a close 5-4 win over Yale. With the overall score tied at four, it came down to the final and deciding match between Bertocchi and the Elis' Susan Lee at the No. 9 position. With the entire Penn team and Yale home crowd watching, Bertocchi pulled out the final two games to win, 3-9, 9-6, 4-9, 9-7, 9-3. "I knew I had to win," Bertocchi said. "I'm glad we ended on a win. It showed how our whole team really supported each other." As expected, the Howe Cup went to No. 1 Harvard easily. But for the rest of the top eight college teams in the nation, the level of squash was extremely high, perhaps previewing what will be an even more competitive season next year.