W. Squash milks the Ephs

The Penn women's squash team is on a roll now as the Quakers are on a four-game winning streak. After clobbering Franklin and Marshall, George Washington and Bowdoin last week, the Quakers continued their winning streak when they defeated No. 8 Williams yesterday. The Quakers (8-2, 2-1 Ivy) ended the Purple Ephs own three-match winning streak when they secured an 8-1 win. Senior co-captain and Penn No. 1 Runa Reta led the charge and improved her record to 7-0 with a convincing 3-0 victory. Junior co-captain Dafna Wegner, freshman Lorin Riley and sophomore Rohini Gupta also recorded flawless wins, all of them triumphing over their opponents in straight sets. The comfortable wins were in stark contrast to last year's match in which only Reta, Wegner and then-sophomore Katie Fetter were able to win against Williams in the Quakers' 6-3 loss. "We're doing a lot better this year," Gupta said. "The freshmen are a great contribution to the team. Last year at this time, I don't think we had won a single Ivy League match, and we even lost to Williams. We're definitely doing a lot better this year." The match got off to a rocky start, however, as the Ephs looked to continue their winning streak. "In the beginning, we were all having a tough time," Gupta said. "We'd been having a lot of easy matches, and they did give us a tough match. It definitely wasn't an easy match. "I think that they more than lived up to our expectations, but once we got into the game, we were able to dominate. For our first really competitive match [in weeks] we did well." Freshman Tyler Pearce, a writer for the Daily Pennsylvanian, echoed Gupta's sentiments. "Williams surpassed my expectations," Pearce said. "They were significantly better than we thought they would be." After four consecutive wins, however, the Quakers are not going to take anything for granted. The Quakers will head to Princeton, N.J., to compete in the Constable Tournament this weekend. It will be their first real test since they faced No. 1 Trinity on Jan. 12. "We're going to stay positive, stay focused and not be too confident but confident enough that we can play well," Gupta said. The Constable Invitational is an individual tournament in which the top collegiate squash players will go head to head, a precursor to the national tournament at the end of the season. "It's going to be a really great weekend to see what the top competition is like and just to get in some good squash before nationals at the end of the year," Pearce said. "I think this weekend we all have to be really serious, focus and take it point by point. We're going to look for strong wins and just try to play our best squash."

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