No jitters; W. Squash overwhelms Cornell

The Penn women's squash team opened its season by steam-rolling Cornell 8-1 on Saturday.

Eight of the Quakers' starting nine took down their Big Red counterparts 3-1 or 3-0. Penn's only loss was at the No. 3 position.

"Cornell was a little bit of a younger team than ours," said co-captain Lauralynn Drury, who earned a 3-1 victory herself at the No. 7 position. "They don't have as much match experience."

Sophomore Kristen Lange set the tone for the match with a 3-1 win at the No. 1 spot. From then on, it was nearly a cakewalk for the Quakers (1-0, 1-0 Ivy).

One victory of note was that of Annie Madeira, the team's lone freshman. The Pennsylvania native earned her first regular-season win.

"She is a player with a lot of heart and a lot of fight," said co-captain Elizabeth Kern in an e-mail. "She will definitely play an essential role in this team's success."

Coach Jack Wyant knows the praise for such a lopsided win belongs to the team as a whole.

"I wouldn't focus on anyone in particular," Wyant said.

"With an 8-1 victory, everyone obviously played extraordinarily well," Kern added.

"We had four incoming freshman last year who've all grown up so much," Drury said. "We known how to handle situations under pressure, how to handle competitive matches, first matches."

The Quakers will not play again for two weeks, after which they will host Yale and Brown at Ringe Courts.

Facing the Bulldogs might be Penn's toughest test of the regular season - and one it won last year - making the Cornell match a good tune-up and the next two weeks of practice very important.

"It's going to be tough because we have Thanksgiving break," Drury said.

Drury's fellow co-captain, Kern, is confident the Quakers won't be weighed down by turkey when they return to campus.

"We are playing great squash right now, and we will continue to do so leading up to our matches against Yale and Brown."

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