ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's squash team will attempt to win the fourth Hoehn Cup in program history this weekend, when it competes at the College Squash Association's 'B' Division national championship in greater Boston.
 
The Hoehn Cup features the nation's ninth- through 16th-ranked teams, and Cornell (5-10) enters the weekend ranked fourth in the bracket and 12th overall in the country. That lands the Big Red a quarterfinal match against No. 13 Franklin & Marshall (18-5) at 4 p.m. Friday at Harvard's Murr Center.
 
The Big Red finished fifth at last year's Hoehn Cup, leading to a season-ending national ranking of 13th. Cornell followed up a narrow loss to St. Lawrence in the quarterfinals with consolation bracket wins over Western Ontario and F&M – its first opponent in this year's competition.
 
Cornell, which last won Hoehn Cups in 1993, 2006 and 2007, opens against a Diplomats squad that set a program record for wins in a season after a pair of sweeps against Johns Hopkins and Dickinson at the Centennial Conference Round Robin on Feb. 15. F&M was a surprise second-place finisher at the Mid-Atlantic Squash Championship the week prior, thanks to a 5-4 upset over then-#6 Drexel in the semifinals. Cornell defeated F&M during regular-season play, 5-4, on Jan. 26. The victory improved Cornell's all-time record against F&M to 29-24.
 
Recently selected to the All-Ivy League Team and as the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, freshman Veer Chotrani is tied for the team lead in victories. He and sophomore Nicholas Göth Errington have matching 8-7, while senior Jared Scherl is 7-7 from the bottom of the ladder.
 
One of the other Hoehn Cup quarterfinals, #9 Dartmouth vs. #16 MIT, will run simultaneous to the action between Cornell and F&M. The first wave of quarterfinals precedes those matches on the same courts, pitting #11 Western Ontario against #14 George Washington, and #10 Columbia vs. #15 Brown.
 
The winner of Cornell's match and the Dartmouth/MIT match will square off against each other in the semifinals at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The losers will play at noon in the consolation semifinals. Once the page turns to Sunday, only the Hoehn Cup's championship match will be staged at Harvard (11 a.m.). The three consolation matches will be staged at MIT's Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts.