It's always nice to have the home-court advantage going into your first match of the season, but the Penn men's tennis team would have done fine even without it. The Quakers easily disposed of Colgate, 6-1, at Levy Tennis Pavilion on Saturday. Penn was well acquainted with the Red Raider lineup, since the two teams have met twice within the last year. Each time, the story unfolded in much the same way, with the Quakers claiming easy victories. Saturday's match was no exception. Players in Penn's first five singles positions breezed through their matches with straight-set wins. Junior Fanda Stejskal and Sophomore Ryan Harwood posted identical 6-3, 6-2 scores, while senior co-captains Eric Sobotka and Rob Pringle also had strong showings, posting 6-3, 6-1 and 6-3, 6-2 wins, respectively. Sophomore Andy Kolker also claimed a 6-1, 6-1 victory for the Red and Blue. The Quakers' only loss of the match was junior Kevin Strouse's three-set defeat. Penn's three doubles teams added an exclamation point to the Quakers' victory, as they combined for the sixth and final point. "I've been stressing that if they are prepared, they'll do well," Penn coach Mark Riley said. "They came out prepared, and they did well." The Quakers expected no less than a victory against the less-talented Red Raiders. "[Playing Colgate] was a good thing, to get first-match jitters out of the way," Pringle said. "You can afford to make a couple of mistakes and work the kinks out." While he has no preference in terms of the team's first opponents, Harwood admitted that after a disappointing fall season, it's "good to bounce back and get a win off the bat for the spring." The Quakers have two more weeks to refine their games before they head west to take on nationally-ranked Nebraska. Then they will return home to face the tough duo of New Mexico and Kansas -- with the latter being the program Riley left to come to Penn. "We're just going to take one match at a time, to play hard every day, every match," Riley said. "And hopefully, we'll improve enough to be a factor in the Ivy League race." "There's a lot of tough teams in the Ivy League," Pringle added. "But we're not going to sell ourselves short. We're definitely competitors."
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