Men's squash had a chance to see where it stood among its conference peers this weekend when it played in the Ivy Scrimmages. The meet is an annual tournament that brings all the teams from the Ancient Eight together before the regular season begins. It is a valuable opportunity for each team to preview the others.
Princeton entered the two-day event without several of its starters from last year, but it was still eager to see what the competition had to offer.
"We were looking for a good performance," sophomore No. 5 Brendan Bascom said. "We didn't have the best lineup. A lot of guys are out with injuries, but we wanted to take a look at the teams."
Four starters from last year's squad did not return due to injuries and personal reasons. This of course hurt the team, but the Tigers are far from being out of the picture for the season.
Led by junior Yasser El-Halaby in the No. 1 spot for the third straight year, Princeton knocked out Cornell, 6-3, on Saturday with each of the three losses coming in heavily contested matches. Bascom, for example, fell in five games.
"We had a pretty good match," Bascom said. "We didn't play great, but we had great overall attitude and determination. All the matches in the Cornell game we can win. We want to win 9-0 next time. We know we'll have a different lineup when we play for real."
The next day, the Tigers lost to Yale, 7-2, before facing Penn later that day. Only El-Halaby and freshman No. 2 Robert Hong earned wins against the Elis.
Against the Quakers, Princeton lost by a narrow 5-4 margin.
During the scrimmages, head coach Bob Callahan presented a lineup of El-Halaby, Hong, sophomore Michael Gilman, sophomore Parker Sutton, Bascom, senior Rob Siverd, sophomore Preston Comey, freshman Tommy McKay, sophomore Tim Callahan and junior Hop Wells, in that order.
This lineup may or may not be how the team will be playing two weeks from now, however, when Princeton takes on Cornell again in its first regular-season notch.
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