ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's squash team will start Ivy League play this weekend when it hosts Yale on Saturday and Brown on Sunday in a pair of noon starts at Belkin International Squash Courts.
 
The Big Red embarked in its first season under David Palmer, The James Broadhead '57 Head Coach of Squash, with a three-win sweep of its matches at the Cornell Round Robin in November. Cornell won handily in each match, dispatching of Williams (9-0), Western Ontario (7-2) and Dickinson (8-1). Senior co-captain Harry Freeman was joined in the top three positions by sophomores Andy Muran and Perry Hanson to kick off the season. Cornell remains 10th in the College Squash Association's national rankings heading into this weekend.
 
Yale won the College Squash Association's Potter Cup last season, marking the Bulldogs' first national title since 1990. But after the graduation of two of the top three in its lineup, the Bulldogs are ranked second by the CSA in the early going this year behind regional rival Trinity. Yale still has a pair of incumbents ranked in the CSA's top 20 at the conclusion of last season in seniors TJ Dembinski (15th) and Kah Wah Cheong (17th), and freshman Spencer Lovejoy has assumed the No. 1 position. Not surprisingly, the Bulldogs started their season in early December with a pair of 9-0 victories over Franklin & Marshall and Brown. But Yale was then handed an 8-1 loss by third-ranked Rochester on Tuesday.
 
The Big Red is 3-55 against Yale, with the Bulldogs winning last season's meeting in New Haven, Conn. by a score of 8-1. Sophomore Ben Francis accounted for the Big Red's lone victory, winning in four sets at the No. 9 position. Cornell last defeated Yale in 2012 during the quarterfinals of the Potter Cup, which eventually powered Cornell to a program-best fourth-place finish in the national rankings.
 
Brown is ranked 16th nationally after finishing the 2015-16 season in that exact position after three losses at the Hoehn Cup. The Bears have just one match under their belt — the aforementioned 9-0 loss to Yale on Dec. 6. All but one of the matches was decided in three sets. Cornell is 23-9 all-time against Brown, including an active 16-match winning streak in the series dating back to a clash in the 2002 National Intercollegiate Squash Racquets Association national tournament. The Big Red won last season's meeting, 8-1, with the lone setback coming from the No. 1 position.