PRINCETON, N.J. - The women's squash team had been here before. Down 4-2 to Princeton, the Quakers were one loss away from losing to their rivals. This time, however, there was no comeback in store.
In a match that proved again just how close the two teams are, the Tigers got the wins it needed to put Penn away. They avenged their regular season loss to the Quakers, defeating them 6-3 to capture their second-straight Howe Cup.
"In spite of [everything], I still felt like we had an opportunity to win, and they just played better than we did," head coach Jack Wyant said. "Breaks just didn't go our way."
Penn jumped out to an early 2-1 lead, with victories from senior co-captain Lauralynn Drury and sophomore Sydney Scott. The advantage was short-lived, however, as Princeton took the next three points.
Freshman Annie Madeira continued to fight off Princeton senior tri-captain Carly Grabowski at the No. 7 slot, coming back to force a fifth game after being a point away from defeat in the third. On the neighboring court, however, Princeton sophomore Emery Maine was too much for junior Tara Chawla. Maine's win gave Princeton its fifth and clinching victory, rendering Madeira's and sophomore Kristen Lange's matches meaningless.
While Madeira eventually fell, Lange won in another dominating performance. She did not lose a game all weekend and allowed only 31 points in her three matches.
The Princeton crowd was large and loud. Several Penn players complained during their matches that crowd noise during the point, which is against squash ethics, was affecting their play.
In the end they accepted that the crowd was not a major factor in the loss.
"You can't blame environmental factors," senior co-captain Elizabeth Kern said. "We didn't lose because we played bad squash; we lost because Princeton played better squash."
The road to the championship was difficult enough. In the quarterfinal matchup against Stanford - an 8-1 victory - the team's only loss occurred when Penn's No. 2 Alisha Turner collided with the Cardinal's Katy Brewster.
The resulting left-knee injury forced Turner to retire the flight. It also kept the former second-team All-American out of action in the Red and Blue's 5-4 victory over Trinity on Saturday.
Her absence forced nearly all the Quakers to play one slot higher than usual.
"It's an unfortunate situation, but the team stepped up and played incredibly well," he said. "They really believed in themselves, even when they were playing out of position."
Many of those players thrived. Kern, who normally is not in the starting lineup, earned a 3-0 victory at the No. 9 slot.
Despite losing in the finals, making it to the championship is a huge step for the program. This was Penn's first final since its undefeated 1999-2000 campaign, the only time they have captured the Howe Cup.
This year, the crown eluded them, but the Red and Blue will look back on this season and recall their accomplishments, from the Ivy League Championship to the second-place overall postseason finish.
"I don't want this to make the whole season horrible, because it wasn't like that," Lange said.
"If we were to take this one day as depicting our whole season, it would be a lie."
And, Drury added, "they can't take away our [Ivy Championship] rings."
