W. Squash dominates Yale, Brown is shutouts

the top-ranked and undefeated Quakers continued their roll this weekend at the Ringe Courts. The dominating performance of the Penn women's squash team this weekend on its home court was a sight to be seen. The Quakers beat Yale, 9-0, on Saturday, with eight of their players winning 3-0, and Penn prevailed 9-0 against Brown on Sunday, with all nine Quakers shutting out their opponents. Over 100 fans were out to support both the men's and women's squash teams on Saturday. In addition to the friends and families of the players, many influential squash alumni came out this weekend . In fact, Hunter Lott, a big contributor to both Penn and its squash program -- and the man for whom Penn's tennis courts are named -- had some inspirational words before Saturday's slaughtering of Yale. "If you have your opponent in the trash can," Lott said, "you don't open the lid to look inside." These words were enough to get the Quakers all riled up. Penn senior co-captain Katie Patrick was particularly enlivened by Lott's talk. "He was right. Even though we were confident, we couldn't get too cocky and let our guard down," Patrick said. "We put the lid on the can, and locked it in." The Quakers who competed on Saturday against Yale were Patrick, freshman Runa Reta, Rina Borromeo, Helen Bamber, Megan Fuller, Paige Kollock, Chrissy Eynon, Patti Lin, and Eliza Jacobs. "I played pretty well today," Reta said."I was pretty pumped. I never played her before, so I wanted to come out hard and not to underestimate her." Just like the rest of her team, Reta acted on Lott's words of encouragement. Only Eynon dropped a game for the Quakers; everyone else shut out their opponents. On Sunday, the squad kept that positive vibe flowing as it disposed of Brown, improving their record to 4-0 overall, 3-0 in the Ivy League. One of the more interesting matches of the day -- even if the interest solely stemmed from familial intrigue -- was the one played at the top spot. Patrick squared off against Brown's Leslie Mann. Mann is the younger sister of Lauren Mann who played number eight for the Quakers on Sunday. In attendance on Sunday were Lauren and Leslie's parents, who approached Patrick before her match and told her to "take it easy on our daughter." Patrick disobeyed the Manns and won, 3-0, only giving up two points to Leslie. "In general, the match against Brown was easy because of the fact that they were such a young team," Patrick said. "They are in the building stage right now." In addition, to Brown's credit, they were missing their No. 2 player and their No. 6 player. Because of this, Penn coach Demer Holleran opted to play Lauren Mann and Suzette Solomon, and they both responded with 3-0 wins. This weekend was exactly what the Red and Blue had in mind. There were no surprises, just strong play. "Everyone was really focused and both were good wins," Bamber said. "These matches were a good way to end the semester." The team will play its next match on January 15 at the New York Club. The Quakers' next and last home match will be on January 26 versus Princeton.