What does a team do against a severely overmatched opponent? If that team is Penn men's squash, it pushes down on the gas pedal just as hard as ever.
This Saturday, the No. 4 Quakers (6-0) will head to nearby Lancaster, Pa. to face No. 17 Franklin & Marshall (6-6). The Red and Blue have lost only three individual matches this season, but Penn will not be discounting the benefit of another convincing win, no matter who the opponent is.
"If you play a team that's ranked far below you, you're still proving yourself to all the other teams that haven't seen you play," senior Graham Bassett said. "If we knock out every opponent as best we can, then other teams will see us as strong no matter who we're playing."
F&M; will have its hands full in its effort to avoid becoming Penn's sixth shutout of the season. Only No. 5 Yale was able to avoid a clean sweep this season when they fell to the Quakers 6-3 in New Haven, Conn.
But the Diplomats are not nearly as experienced as the Elis, and they will have problems stacking up against Penn at any point in the order.
"Franklin and Marshall are a pretty solid team, but they're a very young team," said coach Craig Thorpe-Clark. "They're a close rival so we go out there as a team to win. We don't take any team lightly, and we want to continue our good run of play."
Team captain Gilly Lane, a senior and first-team All-American, and second-teamer Lee Rosen provide a powerful one-two punch at the top of the ladder with a combined 11-0 record, and emerging sophomore Parker Justi, with only one loss this season, has been dependable in the middle of the order.
Early-season dominance has not changed the mindset of the team, which believes that every match is just a piece of the larger picture: a title season.
"It's been a team effort, not just an individual, and that happens in daily practice. They work hard together. They play hard together," Thorpe-Clark said. "I think as a result they take on the responsibility of the team when they go and play. They're not just playing for themselves because they've got a lot of other teammates who are working just as hard for the victory."
This weekend will be the final tune-up before Penn begins its hardest stretch. The next three matches are against the only teams currently ranked higher: Trinity (1), Princeton (2) and Harvard (3). The F&M; match may seem to be a classic trap game.
However, the Diplomats will not face a complacent team.
"I think it's easy for our team because we think about our record and who we are as a team so much that every match should be as high a score as possible - should be as big a defeat as possible," Bassett said. "People are thinking more about the team than themselves."
