Huober | So-so sendoff for the seniors

Now that second semester has rolled around, this senior is getting ready to bid farewell to a lot of things. Somewhere high up on that list, situated just under $3.75 food cart lunches and in a dead heat with the shortcut near the Rotunda, are Penn sports.

Unfortunately, I may be parting ways with that last item on somewhat of a down note. Looking around the Red and Blue athletics scene this winter season, there just isn't that much to get excited about.

It's not just the off years for banner sports like men's and women's basketball, although those are disappointing enough. It's the multitude of other sports competing these days - from wrestling to swimming to men's squash - that have been plodding along bereft of any compelling story-lines.

In wrestling's case, maybe we've just been spoiled; the graduation of a two-time national champion can tend to do that.

But without Matt Valenti, the team has yet to get back on track this year. The Quakers dropped out of the USA Today/NWCA Top 25 after a disappointing loss to Arizona State in early January and have not been able to grapple back into the national picture.

In my four years covering the team, that has never happened. In fact, wrestling is one of those few Penn sports that can legitimately claim to be a perennially ranked-program. Well, no dice this year, at least not for now.

Elsewhere, another of those teams is having a trying year of its own. Men's squash, like wrestling, has struggled thus far to cope with the loss of its best player from last season. Without No. 1 Gilly Lane, the Red and Blue have fallen in a sport notoriously light on upheaval at the top (look no further than No. 1 Trinity's 175 consecutive wins ... and counting).

The Quakers kicked off the season with a 5-4 loss to Cornell, a team it thrashed, 9-0, just a year ago. Since then, they have slipped to No. 10 in the rankings, lower than at any point while Lane still led the team.

Meanwhile, Penn's other winter sports have not regressed, really, so much as they have failed to improve on a disappointing status quo.

Neither the men's nor the women's swim team has won an Ivy title in over 30 years. That drought will continue this season, as both posted losing league records for the umpteenth year in a row.

Of course, all of these woes might be tolerable if the men's basketball team were making its usual noise at the Palestra, or if the women's team had not fallen flat in this, Pat Knapp's fourth season as coach. Thanks in part to a rash of injuries, Knapp's team is currently 3-13 and has lost 10 straight, eight of those blowouts.

And its hardly necessary to harp on Glen Miller's boys yet again for their less-than-tenable, and at times downright hideous, non-conference results.

For some of these teams, it's not too late to turn things around. Wrestling still has several quality opponents on its schedule, and the team seems primed to turn a corner any minute. Men's hoops, for all the disappointments, played some of its best basketball most recently in the second half against Temple. Past teams have managed to overcome poor non-league records.

Here's to hoping this one does, too. I know the majority of these varsity athletes work their butts off, and I understand that off years can happen.

It's just a shame for this second-semester senior.

Ilario Huober is a senior International Relations major from Syracuse, N.Y. , and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His email address is ihuober@dailypennsylvanian.com

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