The women's squash team had a chance last night to avenge a 9-0 loss from a season ago against rival Princeton.
This time, the Tigers were coming into their home court.
While the No. 5 Quakers did manage to improve upon their previous showing, they couldn't quite get the job done, falling 6-3.
"Today I think we played pretty well, but obviously not well enough to win," Penn coach Jack Wyant said.
"You've got to credit Princeton. They came here and got done what they needed to get done."
Although No. 4 Princeton won convincingly, the outcome was in doubt for most of the night.
With her 3-0 win over Casey Riley in the No. 2 spot, Penn junior co-captain Paula Pearson tied the match at three going into the final set of matches.
That was as close as the Quakers would get, however, as the No. 4 and No. 7 women, junior Caitlin Russell and freshman Emily Goodwin respectively, lost at nearly the same time to clinch the victory for the Tigers.
"For the whole team in general I think obviously it's a huge improvement from last year, and I think the home court advantage helped," junior co-captain Radhika Ahluwalia said. "We had a lot of fans out here."
Ahluwalia played the most competitive match of the night. Her 10-8, 4-9, 9-6, 10-8 victory over Lena Neufeld cut the deficit to 2-1 and gave the Quakers some momentum at the top of the lineup.
Pearson's win and a 3-0 victory by freshman Tara Chawla evened up the match at 3-3.
Freshman Alisha Turner -- playing in the No. 1 slot in the lineup -- won her first game against Claire Rein-Weston, but once the outcome of the overall match was decided, lost three straight sets.
It was the first loss of Turner's career, coming into the match with an 8-0 record that included four wins in the top spot in the lineup.
"I'm proud of their effort tonight," Wyant said. "I'm proud of their effort all year. If they continue on the same pace we'll keep making progress, we'll keep getting better, and that's the goal."
The match last night was the Quakers' first against a higher-ranked team since a home loss to No. 1 Yale December 3.
Between then and last night's loss, they had recorded five consecutive 9-0 wins over lower ranked squads.
Pearson said that the players were more prepared in these matches because they were playing lower-ranked teams. However, when facing Princeton, "there's a little more pressure on us."
"That really gave us an opportunity to work on stuff that we needed to work on," Ahluwalia added.
Two of their next three matches are against top three teams --No. 2 Harvard and No. 3 Trinity -- and the third is against Dartmouth, a club ranked just one spot behind the Quakers.
"Going into our matches against the top five teams last year, the odds were stacked against us," Wyant said. "But I think this year they knew we had a chance."
Last night's loss drops the Quakers to .500 in the Ivy League. If Penn is to finish near the top, it will eventually have to find a way to defeat a higher-ranked team.
Penn's next shot to do this will come when it travels to Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 11 to play Harvard.
"They're a strong team and we're going to have to play truly great if we're going to win that match," Wyant said.
