Quakers fall without 'heart' of team

In the most important weekend of the season, the Penn men's squash team had to play without its motivational leader -- senior co-captain Elan Levy. Levy's absence hampered the Quakers' efforts all weekend. Indeed, the injury may have been the difference in Saturday's match against Cornell -- a match the Quakers have been eagerly awaiting since November's loss to the Big Red. "Elan is the heart and soul of the team," Penn junior Matt Vergare said. "He's our motivational leader. He's had such a big impact on our team for the past four years." At stake Saturday was a top-six national ranking and a chance to compete on Sunday for a top-five ranking. Unfortunately for Penn, the No. 7 Quakers were not up to the task -- falling 7-2 to the No. 6 Big Red. Penn coach Craig Thorpe-Clarke, however, was not too disappointed with his team's play. "We fought them very hard all the way through," he said. "We thought we had a good shot. You can't judge performance and effort on whether we win or lose. It was truly a solid match." The the 7-2 result was closer than the score indicates. Four matches went to the maximum five games. "I don't think the result shows the effort we put into the match," sophomore Richard Repetto said. "We really played well without Elan." Playing at No. 1 on the ladder, Repetto -- currently ranked No. 7 in squashtalk.com's individual rankings -- entered his match as the clear favorite against No. 16 Matt Serediak of Cornell. After winning the first two games convincingly, Repetto dropped three straight to lose the match in surprising fashion. "It was an off day for me," Repetto said. "I drifted away from my game plan and things started to go downward from there." Thorpe-Clarke agreed with Repetto's assessment of the match. "Rich started off extremely well, and then his level started to fade." Although the Cornell match highlighted the weekend, Penn first took on the No. 2 host Princeton Tigers on Friday. The 9-0 loss surprised no one, but the always-optimistic Thorpe-Clarke commended his team for its effort. "I think we played them tougher than we did in the regular season," he said. "Everyone played tougher." On Friday, Repetto challenged freshman phenom Yasser El Halaby of Egypt, who defeated defending intercollegiate champion Bernardo Samper of Trinity 3-0 in Sunday's championship match. Repetto saw the brighter side of his own 3-0 loss. "I hung in there," Repetto said. "The match itself was a lot closer than the last one." Despite losing the first two matches of the tournament, Penn did not leave without picking up an important win. In a rematch of Penn's most competitive match of the regular season -- in which Penn prevailed, 5-4 -- the Quakers faced No. 8 Dartmouth on Sunday in a battle for seventh place. Penn again won, this time by a score of 6-3. "After the loss to Cornell, we decided we were going to give Dartmouth something to think about in the off-season," Vergare said. The Quakers frustrated the Big Green from the beginning, causing Repetto's opponent --No. 8 Ryan Donegan -- to withdraw from the match after losing the first game. "For us to rebound and beat Dartmouth convincingly was a fitting end to the team season," Thorpe-Clarke said. The Red and Blue will compete in the individual championships next weekend, but the loss to Cornell will continue to loom over the season as a missed opportunity. "It was disappointing," Vergare said. "It was a big chance that we missed out on."

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