ITHACA, N.Y. — The women'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 pair of victories at the Cornell Round Robin in November. Cornell opened with an 8-1 victory over Williams, then swept Dickinson, 9-0. All nine matches against the Red Devils were decided in the minimum three sets.
Cornell remains eighth in the College Squash Association national rankings — though the Big Red finished last season seventh after defeating Columbia on the final day of the Howe Cup. That left the Big Red with a record of 10-9, marking the team's fifth consecutive winning season.
Rachel Scherman, now a senior co-captain with
Sydney Francis, finished last year ranked 27th in the nation. Now juniors,
Emma Uible (42nd) and
Charlotte Knaggs (70th) also snagged spots in the CSA's individual rankings. Uible and classmate
Margaux Losty were part of a three-way tie for the team lead in victories with 11. The Big Red also returns its primary entry at the No. 1 position, junior Michèle Garceau. Freshmen
Madison Miles and
Colby Gallagher were each 2-0 in their first collegiate matches in November.
Sixth-ranked Yale improved to a perfect 5-0 after victories last weekend against Wesleyan, Mount Holyoke and Amherst. All five of the Bulldogs' victories this season have been 9-0 sweeps, though all of their matches have come against teams ranked 10th or lower. The Bulldogs finished fifth at the Howe Cup last year, including a 7-2 victory over the Big Red in the consolation semifinals. That result pushed Yale's all-time record against Cornell to 25-1, with the lone Big Red victory in the series coming on Jan. 20, 2001 in a 6-3 decision in Ithaca.
Brown is 0-1 on the young season, having played just a 9-0 loss to Yale in December to hold steady at 10th in the country entering the weekend. The Big Red is 11-12 all-time against the Bears, including a 7-2 decision last year in Providence, R.I. That marked the first time in eight meetings between the squads that Cornell didn't win by a margin of 8-1 or 9-0.
