This weekend the Penn women's squash team will compete against some familiar faces as it battles Yale, Brown, and Columbia over a two-day span.
Some of Penn's competitors are former teammates.
Coach Jack Wyant and freshman Annie Madeira became familiar with some of Yale's competitors over the summer working on the Junior National team.
Wyant coached while Madeira competed alongside Yale's freshmen Logan Greer and Sarah Toomey.
The squad finished eighth in the World Junior Championships in Hong Kong over the summer, after it fell to Canada.
But Madeira has shown she can hold her own on U.S. soil, winning all of her matches in a Penn uniform.
"She has done a terrific job so far," Wyant said. "She has worked really hard and going from high school squash to college squash is quite an adjustment."
"I think that we have had a really good fall and summer," added Wyant, whose team got off on the right foot by winning this year's Ivy Scrimmage. "We trained hard whether it was in the weight room or on the court."
The Bulldogs, coming off a 9-0 win over Stanford, are the Quakers' toughest opponent. Brown, who dropped a 7-2 decision to Harvard recently, will be up next.
"Even though we are still young, we are relatively experienced," Wyant said. "Now they know what to expect against Yale because we played them twice last year."
The latter matchup was a win in the semifinals of the Howe Cup.
But even a semifinal loss would be a pipe dream for Columbia, as the Lions have just begun their varsity program. They will compete as a club for the next two years, before becoming a full-fledged varsity squad in 2011.
The Quakers have no such growing pains to worry about. Instead, they'll be focused on avenging last February's disappointing third-place finish in the Howe Cup.
"We are fortunate that the line-up is the way it is," Wyant said. "I think these matches will be a great opportunity for us to get better."
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