ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's squash team heads back out on the road this weekend to Philadelphia for a pair of non-league matches against teams currently aligned for Potter Cup berths. Cornell takes on Virginia in a neutral-site match at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Penn Squash Center in Philadelphia, then it wraps up the trip with a 1 p.m. Sunday visit to Drexel.
Cornell (3-4), which is ranked 14th in the nation by the College Squash Association as of Monday, is coming off a 6-3 victory over #16 Brown on Sunday in Providence, Rhode Island. A pair of five-game victories from sophomore
Nikhil Arjunan Iyer at No. 3 and sophomore
Thomas Mocorrea at No. 8 helped the Big Red surge to victory after the teams were tied, 2-2, following the first rotation. Senior
Jared Scherl rallied to win his match at No. 9, making him the only member of the team to win both of his outings on the weekend. He accounted for the lone Big Red point in an 8-1 setback against #6 Yale on Saturday.
Freshman
Veer Chotrani leads the team with a 5-2 record, competing exclusively from the top spot on the ladder. Scherl and sophomores
Charles Culhane, Nicholas Göth Errington and
Alex Dworetzky all have four wins apiece.
Virginia (7-3) is ranked eighth, which would be good at season's end for the final berth into the Potter Cup – the 'A' Flight of the CSA's National Championships. The Cavaliers scrapped out a 5-4 victory over visiting #13 Western Ontario on Sunday after cruising past visiting #48 Vassar, 9-0, the day before. Virginia has been particular strong from the top of its lineup, with 5-0 records from both freshmen standouts Aly Hussein at No. 1 Omar El Torkey at No. 2. Junior William Braff is 6-0 from primarily No. 7. The Cavaliers, now in their third season at the varsity level, have defeated the Big Red, 5-4, in each of the last two seasons.
Drexel (6-3) is ranked fifth, having ascended to that position after close victories over Yale (6-3) and Rochester (5-4) in early December. After suffering a 9-0 loss to #2 Trinity in its first action since the semester break, the Dragons rebounded with a 9-0 drubbing of #19 Middlebury on Sunday. Lucas Rousselet is an even 4-4 from the top position, but Matias Knudsen is a perfect 7-0 from No. 2. Gautam Nagpal typically competes toward the bottom of the ladder, but had won seven straight before a loss to Trinity on Jan. 9.
Cornell evened the all-time series between the programs at 4-4 last year with a 5-4 upset victory on Jan. 18 at Belkin International Squash Courts. The Big Red, which was ranked 16th at the time, beat ninth-ranked Drexel in the bottom five matches on the ladder – capped by a five-game victory from
V. Luke Park II at the No. 7 spot.
Sunday's match at Drexel will be broadcast through the host school's website.
