Madeira quietly pilots Quakers

After joining the women’s squash team in the fall of 2007, Annie Madeira wasted no time before distinguishing herself.

The only freshman on the roster at the time, Madeira completed the year undefeated in the regular season and joined the team in its first Howe Cup appearance in eight years. That year, she surrendered only two games against Ivy League opponents.

In her next two years, she lost just five matches combined — three in the Ivy League — and had an eleven-match winning streak her junior year.

Now a senior, Madeira is the captain and only upperclassmen in coach Jack Wyant’s program. The consensus is that she’s knocking the ball out of the park — or the court.

She has had to adjust to a revamped lineup and coaching staff. This year’s roster carries 11 players: three freshmen, seven sophomores and Madeira.

In the offseason, Wyant was appointed head of the men’s program. To compensate for his split duties, Wyant brought in two new assistants, Amy Gross, who was a three-time national champion at Yale and 2007 Penn graduate Gilly Lane, who captained the men’s team his junior and senior years.

But Madeira says that despite the organizational changes, things are running as smoothly as ever on the women’s side.

“All the underclassmen have really stepped up, and a lot of the sophomores have become great leaders already,” she said. “I haven’t really noticed that big of a difference.”

While Madeira, who will play in the middle of Penn’s ladder this year, may be humble about the uniqueness of her senior season, her coach and her teammates see it differently.

“It’s a pretty big change to have allowed me to coach on both teams,” Wyant said after an evening practice.

“One of the reasons why I think it’s been a pretty smooth transition — or the biggest reason — is because of Annie. She’s kept everybody focused on what’s most important.

“It’s really tough because if you get right down to it, there’s no bridge to Annie; there’s nobody in the junior class, no other seniors that she can rely on. [But] she hasn’t let age or experience or time get in the way,” he added. “That’s a really, really valuable characteristic in my mind.”

Just as eager to praise Madeira’s superior leadership and “quiet intensity” as Wyant described it, was sophomore Nabilla Arrifin, who will top Penn’s ladder this season.

“It’s such a huge contrast from last year because we had two captains and both of them [were] really loud, and this year we have Annie and she’s really quiet but she’s really competitive as well,” Arrifin said. “I feel like in that sense whenever she says something we really listen to her.”

Certainly, the stakes are high for the women this year, as they always are under Wyant, but with Madeira at their helm, it seems that neither the players, nor the coach, are concerned.

“When you watch her on court, you can see on her face how much it means to her, and I think that’s great,” Wyant said.

Arrifin summed up the standard set by her senior captain:

“If Annie can do it, so can we, you know?”

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