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We’re in uncharted territory.
With back-to-back wins over top 5 teams from the men’s side along with another perfect start to the season on the women’s side, associate head coach Gilly Lane finds himself as a leader of one of the most successful Penn squash programs in school history.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Lane said.
It’s only a four-block journey from Drexel’s squash courts to Penn’s, but when the Dragons came to face the Quakers last Tuesday, the walk back must have been a painful one.
George Washington may have beaten the British, but he certainly won’t be beating the Quakers anytime soon. At least, that’s what Penn squash is hoping for.
Is it possible to describe something as both global and local at the same time?
If any team can claim this paradox, it certainly has to be Penn squash. Together, the men’s and women’s teams compose potentially the most diverse binary of any group on this campus.
The year is 2012, and three wide-eyed freshmen walk onto the Ringe Courts as Red and Blue athletes for the first time, eager to take No.9 Penn men’s squash to new heights.
If only it were that simple.
From the Red and Blue to the Red, White and Blue, Gilly Lane had a busy summer.
The former assistant coach of Penn Squash begins a new chapter as Associate Head Coach following his promotion in July.
Earlier this month, Penn squash assistant coach Gilly Lane coached the US men’s team to a bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.
Lane, who graduated from the College in 2007 after earning All-America, All-Ivy and team MVP honors all four years at Penn, served as a player-coach for the men’s team last year in the 2014 Pan American Sports Festival, where the men qualified for this year’s event by placing third.
The head of the US national teams, Paul Assaiante, wanting to maintain continuity between the 2014 and 2015 events, offered Lane the men’s head coach position if he did not make the team as a player.
“I jumped at the chance when they put it out there to me,” Lane said.
Sunday afternoon proved to be heartbreaking at Ringe courts for Penn men’s squash. In a match where four positions in the ladder were forced to five games, only one of them went Penn’s way.
Has Penn men’s squash turned the corner? Is the women’s squash team finally ready to take down Harvard and Trinity? One is left to ponder the future of both squads after their surprising performances at last weekend’s Ivy Scrimmages.