Freshman Alisha Turner currently plays in the No. 1 spot in the lineup for the women's squash team, ahead of the two junior co-captains.
This is no arbitrary ranking, however. Turner earned this spot over the course of the season by defeating her teammates in challenge matches.
After starting the year in the No. 4 spot, Turner worked her way up the ladder by winning these matches, which are generally used in squash to determine team rankings.
"A challenge match is when one player on the team plays another for their spot," Penn women's squash coach Jack Wyant explained.
Although Wyant reserves the right to set the lineup as he sees fit, he almost exclusively uses the challenge match system to do it for him.
This method standardizes the ladder system and puts the power to move up a rank entirely in the players' hands.
A player does not have to impress her coach to earn a higher spot; all that counts is winning the challenge match. Just get the job done and you don't lose your spot.
Junior co-captain Paula Pearson said her preference is "definitely the challenge system because it's the truest way to determine the lineup. It's also a way to ensure there's real competitive games between us all."
The system raises the incentive to play well in practice by making those matches meaningful, too.
"There's more pressure because it's determining your spot on the team," she added.
At the beginning of the season, Wyant divides his team into small pools who play round-robin matches.
Using these results, he sets up two tournaments to determine the initial ladder.
And the matches do not end once the rankings are set.
"The system that I use is, we have a challenge match every week," Wyant said. "So, let's say your first week, five is challenging six; let's say six beats five ... The next week, that person that moved up to five will then have an opportunity to challenge for No. 4."
Instead of only using practice to work on specific skills, these matches ensure that players do not lose their sharpness, especially when the team is not playing top competition.
"We have five or six really tough matches and then some other matches where we have a definite advantage going in," Wyant said.
During parts of the season, the intra-squad matches provide the Quakers with their toughest opponents.
The men's team uses the challenge match system as well, but, unlike the women, they do not play matches every week.
Men's squash coach Craig Thorpe-Clark has his players compete in practice every other week or right before a big match.
Thorpe-Clark stressed that it is important not to alter the lineup from the order set by these matches.
"I stand by the results of the challenge matches," he said. "If someone takes it lightly and they lose, they know they're going down the lineup."
His players have certainly taken this fact into account.
"Ninety-five percent of cases, a challenge match is taken seriously by the team," Thorpe-Clark said.
But that other five percent of the time, no matter how well the players have been doing, the challenge match makes all the difference.
Challenge Matches - In practice, players from adjacent flights face off to determine the next match's lineup. Low-flight players who win move up a rank - Women's coach Jack Wyant holds challenge matches for his team every week, and devises the lineup accordingly - Men's coach Craig Thorpe-Clark holds the matches every other week
