PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania kicks off the second half of their season after a month's long hiatus as they play Rochester on Wednesday evening at 5 p.m. at The Ringe. It will be a re-match of last year's meeting in the Potter Cup in the consolation semi-finals in which Penn lost 6-3.

The Quakers hope this time will be different. The men's squash team began the 2017-18 season strong as they got out to a 5-1 record coming out of the gates. That 5-1 record started by winning the Pennsylvania State Classic and then was capped off with a 9-0 win over Williams College on December 3. It has now been over a month since they have played a competitive match and head coach Gilly Lane says they are excited for the second half of their season.

"The boys have been back on campus since the 29^th getting ready for this match against Rochester.  Playing Rochester is always tough.  We needed to be back and put some time in so the boys have been training sometimes twice a day to get ready for this. When you kick things off and have three tough matches right off the bat, the boys knew they had to come back and needed to be focused and they've done that." 

Despite the start of a new calendar year, things won't get any easier for the Quakers. After playing Rochester, a team they lost to 7-2 and 6-3 last season, Penn will begin its Ivy slate against Yale just three days later on Saturday and will then play Brown on Sunday. Both teams rank inside the top-20. 

Lane prides himself on scheduling his team the nation's best saying, "In order to be the best, I believe you have to beat the best". By season's end, The Red and Blue will have played every team in the top-10 and sixteen of the top-20. In fact, Penn's only loss thus far has come to the currently ranked number three ranked team, St. Lawrence.

Said Lane, "I think we learned that we have to play a little bit bigger and smarter at the key moments against the top teams. We've continued to grow and compete against those top teams in the country well." He continued, "It gave the boys something to think back about and maybe not let happen again. In the week of practice after [St. Lawrence] they were thinking, 'Ok, we know what we need to do. We need to be better in these areas.' They've worked extremely hard since then and think they're ready to go for Wednesday night."

The first half of the season gives the men's squash team a lot to look forward to and be excited about moving into the second half. Particularly when it comes to the young players in the line-up who have gotten better with more experience throughout every match. Despite just being a freshman, Lane had no reservations about putting Andrew Douglas at the team's number one spot. Douglas has gone 6-0 and has dropped just one game.

"He loves squash, he loves to train and he loves the process. I think most freshmen if they came in and played number one and been 6-0 would get a pretty big head and be talking about that. He's the exact opposite," Lane said. "It's about the process with him and that's what I've been the most proud of him for."

Also standing out has been freshman Yash Bahrgava who went 5-0 at the six slot and lost one match at seven to put his overall record at 5-1. While playing mostly exhibition matches, Ryan Murray has also put up an impressive and undefeated 6-0 record.

The Quakers will play their next three matches at home before they travel on the road to play the nation's top team, Trinity. They will then have a ten day break before they play five straight Ivy matches beginning with Princeton on January 31 and ending with Columbia on February 11. 

At 5-1 the goal remains the same as it did at the beginning of the season. Take the season match by match and get better every day. However, it is just the beginning. Lane said, "If we can play to the ability that I know this team has the capability of, we're going to be in a good position at the end of the year. I know the talent of this team and I don't know if we've come close to our potential. That's the exciting thing, we have a lot of talent, but we haven't hit our potential."