M. Squash | 'Career' days for Froot, Drake

The outlook was bleak for the men's squash team.

After coming up short against Harvard Saturday, it faced a 4-3 deficit yesterday against Dartmouth. And Penn's Porter Drake and Mark Froot were each down, 2-0, in their respective matches.

But the Quakers fought through, and at the end of the match it was Drake screaming triumphantly and Dartmouth's Tyler Young throwing his racket against the glass after a frustrating defeat. And only seconds later, Froot put the finishing touches on Brian O'Toole to clinch the 5-4 win.

After falling, 5-4, to the No. 5 Crimson, avoiding an upset to the No. 8 Big Green (11-7, 1-5 Ivy) proved critical for maintaining confidence and strong morale.

"Despite the loss [to Harvard], they felt today they should win and they could win, even when things looked pretty bleak," coach Craig Thorpe-Clark said. "We had two personal great performances - career sort of performances - from both Mark and Porter. To come back and win was pretty spectacular."

The victory also likely keeps the No. 7 Quakers (7-5, 2-4) in the A-draw for the national team championships in two weeks. A loss would have put them at risk of dropping to No. 9 in the country. According to Drake and Froot, Penn has never played in the B-draw.

Those two turned out to be fortunate heroes for Penn, which faced a seemingly insurmountable deficit when freshman Thomas Mattsson lost a five-set match to Dartmouth senior Andrew Boumford.

But Drake - whose four-set loss to Harvard's Franklin Cohen was the deciding match - was looking to hold off what could have been an extremely disappointing weekend for the Quakers. He narrowly won the third and fifth games, 9-8 and 9-7, respectively.

"After being the deciding match and ending up losing to Harvard, a team we haven't beaten in a couple decades, it was pretty heart-wrenching," Drake said. "To come out here and be able to come back from 2-0 down was really exciting."

Thorpe-Clark, in fact, proved to be prophetic on Saturday, noting Drake's mental strength after the loss to Harvard (6-3, 3-2) and counting on his ability to bounce back and play a great match against the Big Green.

Froot made a comeback of his own. Suffering from mono - Drake referred to him as a "soldier" - Froot controlled the last three games to get the final points for Penn.

"I came off [down 2-0] and heard [Drake] had come back and was down 1-2, so I thought if he does it, I may as well do it," Froot said. "I didn't have the fitness, but mentally if I could hang in there, I thought I could pull it out. Luckily, I could."

The weekend also meant the final home match for the four Penn seniors: co-captains Joey Raho and Parker Justi, as well as Andrew Zimmerman and Bobby Dickey. And as Thorpe-Clark and Raho both noted, their final match at Ringe Courts will be one they never forget.

"To leave on the most exciting match I've ever been a part of . was the perfect send-off," Raho said.

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