M. Squash looks to the weekend

Yale and Brown visit the Ringe Courts tomorrow and Sunday as the Quakers try to get back on track. This weekend, only two weeks into its season, the Penn men's squash team faces a difficult challenge. On Saturday at 2:30 p.m., the Quakers -- who finished last season ranked No. 16 nationally -- will meet Yale, a team that finished third in last year's team rankings. Penn already met the Elis, albeit unofficially, earlier this fall in the Ivy League Scrimmage held at Princeton November 13 and 14. Yale, without all of its players, beat the Quakers 9-0. While the match will be a difficult one for the Red and Blue to win, the Quakers hope to make it competitive and to learn from the experience. "I expect to see the guys play 100 percent [and] compete for every rally," Penn coach Craig Thorpe-Clarke said. "Playing against one of the best teams in the country is a great opportunity to focus your skills." After their match on Saturday, the Quakers will have an immediate chance to display what they learned against the Elis. At 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Brown will make an appearance at the Ringe Courts, ready to take on the Quakers. The Bears, who finished last spring ranked ninth, will present yet another difficult challenge to a team that is still rebuilding after last year's disastrous season, in which two players quit the team and two were suspended. The Quakers, however, seem to have recovered and look to be headed in the right direction. Under the guidance of first-year coach Thorpe-Clarke, the Red and Blue seem more unified and more focused. They showed that focus in their one match this season -- a loss to Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Although the final 6-3 score read in favor of the Big Red, the Quakers were competing without three of their top 10 and on courts narrower than the ones they practice on, making the close loss more impressive than disappointing. This weekend, though, the home-court advantage will work in Penn's favor, as will the return of sophomore Roberto Kriete, who was unable to make the trip to Cornell. Sophomore Mukund Khaitan and freshman Matt Stone, both of whom were also injured while the rest of the team was at Cornell, may also return. With these factors benefiting the Red and Blue, the Quakers are not discounting the possibility of getting a couple of wins this weekend. "Yale is a few notches above us and Brown is a pretty equal match," Thorpe-Clarke said. "We are certainly going to have our work cut out for us but the guys feel confident they can win."

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