The Penn men's squash team entered last weekend's Intercollegiate Squash Association Team Championships at Princeton looking for redemption and closure to a season that was filled with difficult losses, injury and controversy. The Quakers began the weekend with a record of 4-8 and rated in the second division of eight teams that would battle for the Hoehn Trophy. With three victories, Penn could have defended last year's win of the Hoehn Trophy and ended an otherwise dismal season on a positive note by finishing ninth in the national rankings. The first challenge came Friday evening in the form of the Vassar Brewers. Penn was able to make easy work of Vassar in completing an 8-1 romp. "We went in relaxed against a team that we have never played before, but was ranked lower than us," Penn senior Juan Dominguez said. "We knew that we were going to win." Saturday brought the Quakers face to face with Brown. Penn swept the Bears 9-0 earlier this season. "Brown was by no means going to be an easy match-up," senior Jason Karp said. "They added two additional players to their lineup, including a new No.1, and played some people who we felt were out of position in order to stack the lineup." While the Quakers were not able to come away with another sweep, they did turn in a solid effort in downing the Bears, 6-3. Nilay Mehta and Peter Withstanley won in straight sets and were joined by freshmen Will Ruthraff and Andrew Stevens and senior Trey Fitzpatrick. Dominguez, Penn's No.1 player, also came away with a victory in five sets (15-10, 12-15, 15-11, 7-15, 15-6) over John Reimers. The final obstacle that stood between Penn and the Hoehn trophy was Dartmouth. The Quakers were destroyed by the Big Green three weeks ago, 8-1. The clock finally struck midnight for the Quakers as Dartmouth dashed the hopes of the Red and Blue with a 6-3 victory. Withstanley and Ruthraff flew through 3-0 victories, but Dominguez lost in five sets and Mehta in four as they played the final team match of their collegiate careers. "It was disappointing that Juan and Nilay didn't win, but we were definitely able to redeem ourselves from the earlier loss at Dartmouth," Karp said. The Quakers came close to bringing some validity to an otherwise dismal season. For the Penn players, though, the consensus is that two out of three ain't bad.
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