W. Squash returns key players with sights on Ivy League title

When the Penn women's squash team officially opens its season at the Ringe Squash Courts this Saturday against Ivy League foe Cornell, there will be one noticeable absence -- former No. 4 player and current senior Dana Lipson. Lipson chose to leave the team voluntarily during the offseason because she reportedly didn't want to commit the time demanded by the squash team. In addition to weekends regularly filled with matches, the team also trains every weekday for two and a half hours during the season. "[The loss of Lipson] definitely hurts us playing-wise because everybody from No. 4 up has to move up a spot," Penn coach Demer Holleran said. "But at the same time, you want people on the team who want to be here and want to work hard for the team, which I guess makes it an even tradeoff." Coming off a season in which they finished as the third-ranked team in the nation behind Princeton and Harvard for the third consecutive year, the team doesn't appear too concerned about filling the void left after the loss of Lipson. "If [Lipson] was here, she would be in the No. 4 spot, so we would have a stronger team overall," senior co-captain Lindsay Moss said. "I think that it is unfortunate that she is not with the team anymore, but our players are strong enough to meet the challenges that face us." With the exception of Lipson, the Quakers return every player from last year's squad, including two 1997-98 first team All-American and All-Ivy players, senior co-captain Jessica DiMauro and junior Katie Patrick. Penn sophomore No. 3 Helen Bamber also hopes to follow up her rookie season in which she earned second-team All-American honors with another strong performance. The talented Quakers finally hope to capture the national title that has alluded them for so long. Standing in their way are the two giants of women's squash, Princeton and Harvard -- two teams no Quaker team has ever defeated in Penn's 23 years of competitive women's squash. "If we are going to win, we are going to have to win matches four through eight," said Patrick, who recently overtook DiMauro as the No. 1 player on the team. "It is the middle of the lineup that will decide whether or not we win the close matches." With so much experience and depth, the Penn team is very confident heading into the match against Cornell this weekend that kicks off the Ivy League season. "They do not have anything that we do not have. This is only their third year of intercollegiate competition, so not even their seniors have competed on the collegiate level for four years," Moss said. "We have players who have been competing since they were 10 years old plus four years of experience at the college level." In the few short years that Cornell has been competing at the intercollegiate level , the team has made marked improvement throughout the history of its program, just recently hiring a coach solely for the women's squad as well as investing in the construction of six new courts. The improvements that Cornell has made have paid off in the recruiting process -- most apparent at the top of their lineup where a former Spanish junior champion occupies the top slot. Because of these changes in Cornell's program the Quakers are approaching the match more seriously than they have in the past. "It is very doubtful that they could beat us, but we are having a lot more respect for them this year," Holleran said. "Last year we dropped our one, two and five players from the match, and this year we are only dropping our No. 1." However, before the Quakers can start the season officially, they must battle McMaster, a Canadian university, in a final preseason dual match at home today. "Nicole Carroll, No. 1 for [McMaster], puts a lot of spin on the ball, but Jessica [DiMauro] just has incredible touch shots and drops. Nicole is kind of slow, so Jessica should be able to move her around quite a bit," Patrick said.