W. Squash can play, and Howe

The No. 3 Penn women's squash team will compete for the national championship in the Howe Cup this weekend at Harvard. In a season mired in disappointments and missed opportunities, one final chance for redemption remains. While the Penn women's squash team has been chasing that elusive national title all season long, they have to put everything on the line today at the Howe Cup, which runs through Sunday at Harvard's Murr Center. Regardless of regular season results, the team that wins this weekend goes home with the national championship. Penn (7-2, 4-2 Ivy League) enters the tournament as the No. 3 team in the country, behind Harvard (8-0, 4-0) and Princeton (7-1, 3-1) respectively. But the Quakers have lost to both of these teams in the past month. "They are excited about their chances. It seems to be a real upbeat mood around here," Penn coach Demer Holleran said. "People have been practicing hard, and we are going to go for it." Penn's wins and losses have little bearing on the result. Each team enters the tournament on a level plain with a theoretically equal chance of winning it all. There are no more moral victories for the Quakers. The team opens today in the quarterfinals against Yale (5-4, 2-3), a team which the Quakers defeated 9-0 earlier in the season. "Not to get ahead of ourselves," Holleran said, "but we are anticipating a relatively easy match with them." It is in the semifinals, when Penn most likely will play Princeton, where the true mettle of this team will shine through. The Quakers do not get any more second chances, so they cannot afford the mental errors and minor slip ups that characterized their matches against Harvard and Princeton this season. A prime example is freshman No. 9 Chrissy Eynon's collapse after leading 2-0 in her match against Princeton, about which she said, "I just lost my concentration and stopped being patient." "When you get to this level of squash, it is not just about hitting the ball away from your opponent," sophomore Megan Fuller said. "It is also how you carry yourself, and your attitude on the court. "I think because Harvard and Princeton have won national championships [in the past] they have a leg up on us. They already have that cockiness." Their hopes for a national title hinge on the performance of the middle of the lineup, as the Quakers from No. 4 sophomore Lauren Petrizio to No. 7 Fuller struggled in the team's previous matches against the Crimson and Tigers. In the 5-4 loss to Harvard, these four players combined for only one win, taking only four out of 15 total games. "I think that a lot of times we get frustrated and start making errors," Enyon said. "Everyone gets frustrated, but it's just how you deal with it." Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles the Quakers face, Penn still has every ounce of the trademark confidence it had when it opened the season with a 54-game winning streak. According to sophomore Helen Bamber, the team's mood has been even more upbeat and positive since its heart-wrenching defeat to Harvard. "We know we can play a lot better than we did. [Harvard and Princeton] have everything to lose," Eynon said. "We are very pumped up about showing what we can do because we still haven't played our best squash." The hourglass is quickly running out on the Quakers' season. Now it is simply time to wait and see if their best will be enough.