ITHACA, N.Y. — The No. 9-ranked Cornell men's squash team (5-4, 1-3 Ivy League) returns to action this weekend when it travels to the Nutmeg State to take on a pair of top-5 opponents in No. 3-ranked Yale (4-2, 2-2 Ivy League) and No. 4-ranked Trinity (6-2, 4-0 NESCAC).

Cornell will first face its Ancient Eight foe, Yale, on Saturday, Feb. 1, with first matches from the Brady Squash Center in New Haven, Conn., slated to begin at noon. Match action will be streamed live on Stretch Internet.

Rounding out the weekend's slate, the Big Red will take the quick trip northward on Interstate 91 to face Trinity in Hartford, Conn., at the George A. Kellner Squash Courts on Sunday at 1 p.m. Matches will be carried live on the Northeast Sports Network.

Seeking to return to the win column, Cornell has lost its last four matches to No. 6-ranked Harvard and No. 7-ranked Drexel by 7-2 scores, while it suffered 8-1 and 9-0 setbacks to No. 3-ranked Princeton and top-ranked Penn, respectively, two weekends ago.

INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS REWIND
Cornell had four representatives at this past weekend's College Squash Association (CSA) Individual Championships in New York City.

Seniors Aaron Liang and Arnaav Sareen both lost their first-round matches in the Pool Trophy bracket, while fellow senior Shreemann Raghavan recorded a victory over Connecticut College's Alejandro Moncada Gonzalez in four games in the quarterfinals of the Molloy North bracket. Tanay Punjabi lost his quarterfinal match in the Molloy West bracket to Dickinson's Joe Smythe.

Raghavan ended up losing in the semifinals to Harvard's Jacob Lin in five games, while Liang posted a pair of victories in the Pool Trophy consolation bracket. Liang's first of two victories last Sunday was a straight games victory over Sareen in the all-Cornell consolation quarterfinal match.

SCOUTING YALE
No. 3-ranked Yale enters the weekend with a 4-2 overall record and 2-2 mark in Ivy League matches. The Bulldogs lost their first two Ancient Eight matches of the season, falling to Princeton, 5-4, on Jan. 11, and suffering an 8-1 setback to Penn the following day. Two weekends ago, Yale posted a weekend sweep of Dartmouth, 9-0, and defeated Harvard, 8-1, in its home opener, signifying the program's largest victory over the Crimson in 15 years.

Rishi Srivastava has a perfect 6-0 record on the year for Yale. Jack O'Flynn has also gone undefeated on the year, going 4-0 in his respective matches. Arav Bhagwati, Tad Carney, Rohan Gondi, Lachlan Sutton, and Merritt Wurts all have 4-2 records on the year, tying O'Flynn for the second-highest win total on the Bulldogs roster.

SERIES HISTORY WITH YALE
Yale owns the series lead over Cornell, 62-3, which includes the Bulldogs winning the last 12 meetings between the Ivy League programs.

A victory on Saturday would be Cornell's first-ever win over Yale on its home court in the series.

In last year's meeting between the programs at the Belkin Squash Courts, Veer Chotrani and Sareen both posted victories for the Big Red in its 7-2 setback. Chotrani won in straight games against Siow Yee Xian, 11-3, 11-8, 11-7, while Sareen defeated Max Forster in four games, 11-9, 11-8, 7-11, 11-9.

SCOUTING TRINITY
No. 4-ranked Trinity comes into the weekend with a 6-2 overall record and a 4-0 mark in New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) play.

The Bantams are coming off a weekend sweep of Harvard (Jan. 17) and Dartmouth (Jan. 19) were it posted wins of 6-3 over the Crimson and 8-1 against the Big Green.

Joachim Chuah, Dmytro Shcherbakov, and Benedek Takacs (6-1), Huzaifa Ibrahim and Mateo Restrepo (6-2) all have a team-high six wins on the season for the Bantams.

SERIES HISTORY WITH TRINITY
Cornell will be looking to snap its 25-match losing streak to Trinity on Sunday as the Bantams own the edge in the all-time series, 31-4.

A win over Trinity would be the Big Red's first over the Bantams since a 6-3 triumph on Feb. 9, 1991, in Hanover, N.H.

Last year, the Bantams posted a 7-2 win over Cornell at the Belkin Squash Courts, featuring a straight-game victory by Chotrani over Mohamed Sharaf, 11-8, 11-7, 11-9, and a four-game win by Punjabi against Andrik Lim, 11-8, 11-9, 5-11, 11-9.