This year, the men's tennis team knows better than anyone that sharing is meant for the playground - not the Ivy title race.
After two consecutive seasons of settling for joint Ivy League championships, the Quakers seek to shake off their defending co-champion Columbia and win the league outright for the first time in 37 years. For new head coach Nik DeVore, sole possession of the Ivy crown would be the perfect welcome to West Philadelphia.
"It's never easy coming into a situation where a team has won back-to-back [Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference] and Ivy titles," Devore admitted. "The team has had a great deal of success under Mark Riley. Those are tough shoes to fill."
Last year, the Red and Blue clinched their chunk of the title with a 6-1 win over Cornell, but a 4-2 loss at Columbia gave the Lions the remainder of the glory. And a week later, the team lost the playoff against the Lions, 4-1, to determine who would earn the NCAA bid.
"Our first and foremost goal is the championship," DeVore stresses. "[Also] sending Jason off with the outright title . He is one of the hardest working guys you'll ever meet. We want to send him off with a bang."
The Quakers' fall season provided a rigorous warm-up and a chance to become acquainted with DeVore and assistant coach Josh Cohen, also new to the tennis staff. A tough loss to Harvard denied Penn a third consecutive ECAC championship, but Jason Pinsky was 59th in the country as that tournament concluded. Junior Justin Fox also excelled at the Princeton Invitational, reaching the semifinals in both the singles and doubles events.
After the ECACs, however, Penn was plagued with injuries to top players Jonathan Boym and Adam Schwartz. DeVore asserts that both players are now "100 percent" and ready for the upcoming spring slate.
The coach wants to drill into his players the importance of mental and physical readiness for every match.
"I always tell the guys, 'Don't look at paper, on paper you might be safer.' You have to take everybody seriously. We're trying to get the guys to have that mentality for every single match . whether it's top ten in the country or not."
This weekend, Drexel will come to the Levy Pavilion for both DeVore and Cohen's first dual-match with the Quakers. The Quakers' first spring Ivy match will be at home on Mar. 29 against arch-rival Princeton.
"It comes down to who wants it most on any given day," DeVore said of Ivy play. "Harvard, Columbia and Princeton have all upgraded their teams."
Nevertheless, the new head coach is confident.
"We have a good opportunity to repeat - to win outright," he said. "We have to get a feel for each other [to] see what makes them tick."
