Men's Squash loses in opener

In squash sometimes, appearances can be deceiving.

At first glance, the Penn men's squash team losing to No. 5 Cornell, 7-2, on Saturday at the Ringe Squash Courts could be considered a major setback.

But two of those defeats came after sophomore Chris Miller and freshman Jacob Himmelrich squandered leads of 2-0, eventually losing, 3-2.

In addition, the 11th-ranked Quakers went the entire day without their No. 4 player, senior co-captain Elan Levy.

"It's not like we got whitewashed," said Penn coach Craig Thorpe-Clark. "The result for us was really a pretty good loss."

"This is the strongest Cornell has been since I can remember," said senior co-captain Sam Miller, who noted that the Big Red's No. 5 player this year was their top man in 2001.

"I think they realized that they were a little lucky to squeak by," Miller said.

Freshman Colby Emerson agreed.

"We were definitely in [the match]," he said. "We definitely showed that we picked up our level of play... from past years."

The two bright spots for the Red and Blue were sophomores Richard Repetto, who swept aside Cornell's William Cheng, 9-6, 9-2, 9-3, and Drew Crockett, who fended off Matt Greenberg, 9-7, 9-3, 7-9, 9-5.

"It's not like this was a bad result for us," said Thorpe-Clark. "Any time you play a team that's ranked higher than you, you have to push harder."

Penn suffered from not having Levy available. His bruised shoulder forced Thorpe-Clark to move six players up one spot in the ladder, meaning that more than half of the team was playing above their normal level.

"If those five [starters] had been in their normal positions, then that may have turned the tide," Thorpe-Clark said.

"I don't like to say 'what if,'", said Miller. "But it's pretty obvious that if we were at full strength, it could have been a lot closer," he said.

"I'm not disappointed in the least."

Up next for the Quakers is a challenging trip north to face No. 4 Yale and No. 8 Brown the weekend of December 7-8.

"Teams like Brown... need to watch out," said Miller.

"We can definitely beat them this year," Emerson said. "Hopefully by then, everybody will be healthy. We are definitely coming out of the loss [to Cornell] with a lot of confidence about our ability to play at a higher level."

Miller knows that Penn will not be able to sneak up on upcoming League opponents after the Quakers' scrappy showing against Cornell.

"Penn is certainly getting a lot more respect from other teams because of the way we played this weekend," Miller said.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.