Going into the Howe Cup and a first-round match against No. 4 Harvard, the No. 5 Penn women's squash team certainly has the right attitude.
Although Penn (8-4, 3-3 Ivy) lost, 7-2, in the teams' last meeting, three of its individual losses were by 3-1 scores and another was 3-2, a fact that encourages Penn coach Jim Martel.
"I think any time you win one game in a match, you can certainly win three," Martel said. He also added that this puts increased pressure on senior Dafna Wegner to step it up, along with sophomores Lorin Riley and Rhea Bhandare and freshman Annie Barrett, all of whom lost close matches back on Feb. 7.
The team heads to the Howe Cup -- the sport's national championship tournament that this year will be held on Yale's campus -- seeded fifth out of eight, giving the Quakers a reasonable chance to achieve this season's team goal with a win over the Crimson (5-3, 4-2).
"One of our goals was to finish in the top four," Martel said. "If we beat Harvard, we'll be in the top four."
While his team would certainly like to win the national championship, Martel realizes that this may not be a realistic aspiration for the Quakers.
"I think [No. 2] Trinity and [No. 1] Yale are really far ahead of everybody else."
Penn's Howe Cup run will begin Friday afternoon against Harvard, with the winner going on to face the winner of the Yale vs. Williams match, which should not be close. Yale beat the Quakers, 9-0, at Ringe Courts, while Penn won on the road at Williams by the same score.
Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown will also attend the three-day event that culminates the team-oriented portion of the season.
Win or lose, the Quakers will play three matches over the long weekend, possibly setting up a rematch with rival Princeton, a team that beat Penn earlier this season.
Penn will be led this weekend by junior Linda McNair, with freshman Paula Pearson and Wegner following second and third, respectively, in the ladder. The lineup remains mostly unchanged from that of the last few matches, with the exception of sophomore Colleen Gurda's entry in the ninth spot.
The Quakers had their last practice as a team yesterday, and that was followed by a meeting in which the Quakers reviewed the squad's goals for the year.
Freshman Radhika Ahluwalia is excited about the prospects of her first Howe Cup and the possible fulfillment of the team's preseason goals.
Refusing to name the players who need a particularly strong performance, she believes the burden lies equally on every player on the team.
"If we want to beat these teams we're going to have to step it up," she said.
