Women's Squash wins with ease over Ivy opponent

The Penn women's squash team made winning look easy.

The Quakers' started the season in dominant fashion against Cornell and Haverford -- they swept the competition, pummeling their opponents a combined 18-0.

Eleven of the Quakers went undefeated in eighteen matches. Against Haverford, Linda McNair, Lorin Riley, Daily Pennsylvanian reporter Tyler Pearce, Melissa Cosgrave, Colleen Gurda, Morgan Olson, Caitlin O'Neil and Meade Morrison dealt each of their opponents considerable losses and came out on top with a combined score of 9-0.

"We did extremely well," Olson said. "This wasn't one of our toughest matches, but everyone came out strong anyway."

Against Cornell, captain Runa Reta played in the No. 1 spot for the Quakers and defeated Big Red freshman Cory Warfield in straight sets.

Upperclassmen Dafna Wegner, McNair and Rohini Gupta each won against Cornell, while the freshmen fared equally well.

"The [freshmen] are awesome," Morrison said. "They are a great asset to the team. Colleen [Gurda] and Tyler [Pearce] both had excellent matches. They were a little bit nervous in the beginning, but they really pulled through."

The freshman class of Riley, Gurda, Pearce, Cosgrave and Elizabeth Evans each won their respective matches to help give the Quakers their flawless 9-0 win over Cornell.

The weekend's success continued the Quakers' impressive start. Two weeks ago Penn finished the preseason with an 8-1 win against Brown. However, they fell to Yale, 6-3.

"We started out with a bang," Morrison said. "We've had a great season so far, even though we're just getting into it."

After losing all of their league matches last season, the Quakers have already had more League success than last year's disappointing campaign.

"[Last year] we didn't have such a great record," Morrison said. "But [Penn coach Jim Martel] is fully confident in our ability to improve. I think we're going to fare well this season and greatly improve our ranking."

From the looks of things, the Quakers are well on their way to a successful season.

"Even though we're a really young team, we're going to be really strong this year," Olson said. "We have a big class of strongly recruited freshmen who show a lot of promise."

The Quakers' next match against Yale will be telling for the future. The Elis are ranked first in the Ivy League. The match will give the Quakers a chance to avenge their earlier defeat.

"[Yale] is going to be one of our toughest matches," Olson said. "In practice, Coach Martel has made it clear that he thinks we have what it takes to win. We just need focus on the game and not our nerves."

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