M. Squash notches two 9-0 wins over weekend

Even though the Penn men's squash team has yet to travel to Cambridge to play No. 2 Harvard, the Quakers' hardest day in Massachusetts may be behind them.

The Red and Blue traveled to the Bay State to play a pair of matches on Saturday, going up against No. 11 Amherst and No. 8 Williams.

Penn may have served up 9-0 victories against both teams, but the scores do not tell the whole story.

The Quakers disposed of the Jeffs with relative ease at Amherst, but it was their subsequent trip to Williamstown that proved more difficult.

"The result was a little surprising that we won 9-0 in what appeared to be so decisive," coach Craig Thorpe-Clark said. "They're very competitive. ... The whole [Penn] team played their game and quite frankly they needed to [in order] to win."

The Ephs showed that little has changed from last season, when they lost 3-6 in a strong showing at Ringe Courts. Like last year, Williams' strength lies in its depth.

"We knew especially at the bottom that it was going to be a challenge," said senior captain Jacob Himmelrich, who shut out his opponents in the No. 6 flight. "They're pretty consistent in talent from one to eight. We knew that everyone was going to have a tough match."

How, then, did the Red and Blue hold the Ephs to just two games in the whole match?

"This was probably the best team effort we've had in a long time," Thorpe-Clark said. "I've been planning and reminding the guys about this for a long time."

The Quakers showed that they have the commitment and grit to completely control a match against a Williams team that, according to Thorpe-Clark, was "by no means a walkover."

Junior Graham Bassett pulled out a 3-1 victory against junior Tyler Kyle, who has been one of the Ephs' solid performers at the bottom of the ladder. The match was a big one for Basset, who had come up short against Kyle in previous opportunities in junior squash play.

The consensus match of the day, however, belonged to freshman Andrew Zimmerman, who toughed out two 10-point games to shut out his opponent.

Zimmerman brushed off any attempt to single him out as the key performer.

"It was a complete team effort this weekend," he said. "To come into Williams and set the tone and win 9-0, we got to business."

With less than a month to go in the regular season, all of a sudden the stretch run is almost upon the Quakers.

"By the time we have to go to Harvard and Dartmouth we're still going to be on this roll and give them a run for their money," Zimmerman said. "I think we have a great shot against these guys."

As the fourth-ranked team in the Ivy League, the Quakers have felt that they have had something to prove all season.

The fiery freshman would agree.

"We sent them the message that we weren't going to mess around," Zimmerman said. "We showed them why we should be a top-four team."

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