Like five of their previous matches this season, the Penn men's squash team's match on Saturday against No. 1 ranked Trinity College ended with a 9-0 result.
This time, however, the Quakers were on the losing side.
Ranked No. 4 in the nation, Penn rarely faces an opponent who can completely dominate the match as Trinity did.
The Bantams, who have won over 100 consecutive matches, were able to beat the Quakers so decisively due to of a number of factors.
For one, the week's plague of cold weather weighed heavily on the bodies of many of Penn's players, leaving the Quakers with a lineup that was not their very best.
Furthermore, depth has never been a problem for Trinity, whose squash team includes, according to Penn coach Craig Thorpe-Clark, six or seven national champions hailing from various countries around the globe.
Penn's squash team, which has moved up considerably in the rankings from No. 16 to No. 4 in Thorpe-Clarke's six years, does not have this tradition of attracting the world's top players.
One reason the coach believes that Penn has not been able to attract as many players of equal quality as Trinity's is because the University is also nationally ranked No. 4 for academics by U.S. News and World Report and holds its students to a higher standard.
Under these circumstances Thorpe-Clark did not realistically believe his team had a chance to win the match against Trinity's superior players, but he did hope to capture a few individual matches.
But the Quakers were unable to win even a single game against the powerhouse Bantams.
However, the scores do not reflect the competitiveness of each match. Thorpe-Clark pointed out the outstanding play of junior Jacob Himmelrich.
"He played extremely well, especially considering that he faced a tricky opponent in the No. 3 spot," Thorpe-Clark said.
Another player whose performance the coach highlighted was No. 1 Gilly Lane.
Lane put up a good fight in the first game against his opponent Bernardo Samper, the Colombian national champion, but lost 10-8.
Samper's experience became apparent in the next two games, as he altered his tactics, slowing down the pace in order to take Lane's physical abilities out of the game.
Thorpe-Clark noted that, despite the wide margin in the score of Lane's final two games, "he still made it tough" for Samper.
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