W. Squash aces first test as top team in the country

For the first time in history, the Penn women's squash team beat Harvard and Princeton. Perennially ranked third nationally behind the Crimson and Tigers, Penn's newly acquired No. 1 ranking was tested and proven in two 5-4 match wins this past weekend at Yale. The wins came in the preseason Ivy Scrimmage, which allows league teams to face each other in unofficial competition. Penn had an easy time against Dartmouth, winning 8-1, and squeezed out wins against the much stiffer competition of Harvard and Princeton. "Every year we believe that we can beat Harvard and Princeton," junior Helen Bamber said. "It's a relief that we won." The win was not an upset, however, despite the fact that Penn had never beaten the two Ivy powerhouses. The Quakers were ranked the top team in the country for the first time ever late last month. "This was the first test to see if we stand at No. 1," senior Katie Patrick said. Patrick added that the the big wins would serve as a real confidence builder for the rest of the season. Penn's next match, however, will not be for a few weeks when they face Cornell on November 20. Harvard and Princeton will not see Penn until late January. "There are a lot of things that need to fall into place if we are going to beat these teams," Penn coach Demer Holleran said. "If we just sit still, we will not be able to beat them. The other teams will all be improving." The Red and Blue seem to have all the confidence they will need. Patrick believes that the team is more unified and committed to winning this year. Adding to the confidence should be the fact that the starting team is composed of eight upperclassmen and one freshman. "We have been young in the past," Bamber said. "Now we have a lot of experience." That experience certainly helped at the Ivy Scrimmage. Despite being impressive, however, the Ivy Scrimmage wins were still unofficial. "Guarded optimism" is Holleran's reaction to the result. The pressure seems to be off for Penn this year, though the players will say that it was never there. "We honestly believed that we would win," Bamber said. "We all went. We all had a lot of fun. It felt like we were a team?. This was the most fun I've had on a squash trip." With the addition of two injured players not in the starting lineup at Yale, Penn hopes to live up to it's premier ranking when the season gets going. "We need to keep training hard to be producing the kind of squash that we can play," Holleran said.