Women's Squash stumbles against Yale but rallies for Brown

After getting past Haverford and Cornell during the first matches of the year, the No. 7 Penn women's squash team faced their most challenging opponent this past Saturday in No. 2 Yale.

In addition to facing the nation's second-best team, a stiff test against No. 6 Brown on Sunday after the Saturday match would provide a great obstacle for the Quakers' stated goal of a top-five finish.

That obstacle was cleared.

Sort of.

The Red and Blue (4-1, 2-1 Ivy League) fell to Yale 7-2, despite victories by the top two seeds for the Quakers, Runa Reta and Linda McNair.

Taking the sting out of the loss and marking progress for the Quakers was their dominating upset of the Bears, as Penn took that match 7-2.

In addition to its victory over Brown, Penn also won Saturday 8-1 over Amherst.

Penn had fallen to Yale, 6-3, during a preseason Ivy League scrimmage, but were unable to get quite as close in the highly- anticipated rematch.

However, the score did not fully reflect the narrow margin between the teams.

"[The Yale match] went pretty well, it had a bunch of close matches that could have gone either way," Penn senior captain Reta said. "There were two to three matches that went to four games."

The Red and Blue dominated the later match on Saturday, defeating Amherst as No. 4 Lorin Riley was the only defeat for the Quakers in the trouncing.

However, Amherst was the considerably weaker opponent on the schedule for Saturday.

Although they did not defeat any Ivy League opponents last year, the Red and Blue notched win number two against Brown.

Penn clearly outclassed Brown on the afternoon, winning six of the matches 3-0.

The Quakers anticipated victory after beating Brown, 8-1, during the preseason Ivy League scrimmage.

Reta finished the tough weekend slate still undefeated on the season.

"Everyone played pretty well considering it was our third match of the weekend," Reta said. "I am pretty happy with the way we are playing right now compared to last year when we went 0-6 in the Ivy League."

The upcoming schedule for the Quakers does not get any easier when it resumes after winter break against Trinity on Jan. 12.

Trinity is the top-ranked team in the nation.

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