W. Squash heads for Europe

The Penn women's squash team will not be spending winter break basking in the glow of its undefeated record. From December 30 to January 10, the Quakers will train against some of the top club teams in Europe. They will spend three days competing in DYsseldorf, Germany and seven days in Amsterdam. The Quakers (5-0, 5-0 Ivy League), the No. 3 team in the nation, find themselves poised to go after a national championship when the season resumes in January. With the more difficult half of the schedule remaining, Penn has no margin for error and cannot afford to relax. When the Quakers come back for the spring semester, they face dual matches against Princeton and Harvard, the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation, respectively. Though the Quakers have never beaten either of these Ivy foes in 22 years of play, they hope that this trip overseas will help push them over the top. "We are really excited to have the opportunity to have this competitive and cultural experience, as well as seeing what squash is like in Europe," Penn coach Demer Holleran said. "It should be a great opportunity for the girls to hone their skills before the bulk of our competitive season against other colleges." Under NCAA rules, the Quakers are permitted to travel out of the country twice every four years to compete in matches that do not count toward their intercollegiate records. Only one of these trips may be overseas, while the other must be within the boundaries of North America. This policy guarantees all Penn players the opportunity to travel abroad twice during their four-year squash career. Two years ago the trip took them to Toronto over the break. The Quakers have been raising money for the past few months to pay for some the costs of the trip that are not picked up by what Holleran called "friends of the team." But a portion of the ground and meal costs will come directly from the athletes themselves. Money aside, the players hope that the more relaxed environment of the matches will allow them to simply have fun and work on their games. "I'm hoping to improve my squash game," senior co-captain Lindsay Moss said. "We are competing against people we've never played, in a different environment. It is not a completely competitive environment because it does not count for anything. It will be a more relaxed environment to play squash in." The consensus among the Quakers is that there is a diminishing benefit from practicing against the same people all the time, as they do while on campus. Although the team could feasibly train in Philadelphia during the vacation and save themselves a long plane flight, they believe that competing against people they have never seen or heard of before will help them improve in the long run. "If you play against the same people every time you learn their games, learn how to beat them and get bored," Moss said. "Playing against different people helps you adapt to other people's games and not be flustered by different squash games." "The more people you play against, the more court sense you develop because everybody competes totally differently," she added. "Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses."