W. Squash faces early tests with Elis, Bears

With matches against Yale and Brown this weekend, the Penn women's squash team has a lot riding on its shoulders as the reigning Ivy League champions. The Quakers will not only be fighting to continue a 13-match undefeated streak overall and a seven-match winning run in the Ancient Eight, but they will be playing to conclude this semester's Ivy play in style. "They're the last two Ivy matches of the semester, so that gives us an impetus to go out and win," freshman Quincy Riley said. "The goal is to get three Ivy wins by Christmas." The Quakers will be returning to action after what will be a two-week-long hiatus since defeating Cornell, 5-4, in a highly contested match at home. "We beat Cornell, but it was very close. It made us realize that this half of the season is going to be tougher than we had originally imagined," senior co-captain Lauren Patrizio said. However, the Red and Blue have been making adjustments in practice and firmly believe they have the skills to put two victories together against the Elis and the Brown Bears. "Each individual saw what they needed to work on," Patrizio said. "We're definitely not sitting back, and this week [Penn coach] Demer [Holleran] has really been trying to keep us focused in preparation to win." The Quakers, ranked No. 2 in the preseason, are heading into both matches as the expected victor, with the Elis ranked fifth and the Bears 10th. However, the Quakers expect two close, challenging matches in which -- like the Cornell match -- the key to victory will probably lie in the hands of the less experienced players on the roster. "We need to play well at every position to win," Patrizio said. "We'll be looking for the bottom of our lineup to step up and hopefully win, but also to play good squash above anything else." The most significant difference between this weekend's matches and the match against the Big Red, however, is that the Quakers' freshmen now have intercollegiate match-play experience. "Getting the first match out of the way, especially at home, has definitely helped," Riley said. "It's nice to be heading into the weekend with a win under my belt." The Elis and Bears will present two somewhat distinct challenges to the Quakers, thus necessitating two different competitive strategies. "Yale has a couple of freshmen in the top of their lineup, but their strength isn't in their top players, but in their depth," Holleran said. "We should have a comfortable time in the top four, but we still need that fifth win, and in that sense, I expect it to go like Cornell." Like the Red and Blue, the Bears are also heading into this weekend after a two-week-long break from match-play. Unlike Penn, however, they are returning to competition after being routed by top-ranked Harvard, 9-0. "I think they'll be a little stronger [than last season] because they got a new No. 1 [player] and their team is more mature and experienced compared to the past couple seasons," Holleran said. However, the Quakers' goal throughout the weekend is one and the same -- to return home 3-0. "I want us to give it a very good effort," Holleran said. "I'm hoping we'll have a focused, determined attitude which will help us win the last two Ivy matches of the semester."

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