A roller coaster season for the Penn men's tennis team continued this weekend.
The Quakers were coming off a strong showing at the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships two weekends ago, finishing tied for fifth. But this week at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Northeast Regionals at Cornell, none of the Quakers managed to advance past the second round.
Freshman Mikhail Bekker and sophomore David Lynn both won their first-round matches, but neither could defeat a ranked opponent in round two.
Bekker was overwhelmed by the skills of some of the top-ranked players in the tournament, which is arguably the most prestigious event of the fall season. Bekker fell to the No. 12 seed, Nick Goldberg of Brown.
"I didn't expect that the players would be so good there," Bekker said. "Now I have a better idea how to play, how to win."
Junior Todd Lecher lost his first match to the Bears' Eric Thomas, but advanced to the quarterfinals of the consolation draw, competing in the most matches for Penn.
Quakers coach Mark Riley was disappointed with his team's finish at Cornell after it showed significant promise just one week prior.
"When you do a good job you always want to improve and we didn't. We didn't play as well as we did in the ECACs," Riley said.
On a positive note for the Red and Blue, they won a doubles match as Lecher and fellow junior Craig Rubin defeated St. John's, 8-6. Riley praised the juniors' play but left open the possibility that there would be changes in store for the Penn Classic next weekend.
"We're still trying to develop teams, maybe try some different combinations possibly for... our Penn Classic," Riley said.
Lecher and Rubin fell in the next round to Brown, 8-4.
Riley is most focused on getting the Quakers ready for the spring season. The coach has already pared down the fall schedule -- with Penn participating in fewer tournaments than many other schools -- as he feels that playing too many tournaments in the fall detracts from practice and ultimately hurts the ability of a team to come together in the spring.
Riley's fall scheduling has at least one believer, in Bekker, who called the current balance between practice time and tournaments "optimal."
Bekker added that the Red and Blue could use a goal, such as the Ivy League Championship that the men's tennis team has never captured, to keep it motivated through the long fall season.
"If we really focus on this goal and do everything to achieve this goal, we can probably reach it," Bekker said.
Riley said that all the members of the Quakers would get the chance to compete in front of the home crowds at Lott Courts and Levy Pavilion on Halloween weekend at the Penn Classic, even those players who have not previously had any match experience this season. The Penn Classic marks the end of the Quakers' fall season.
