"It's probably our biggest match of the season so far," Tyler Young '09 said. "We have said this about a bunch of different matches, but this is really our chance to move up."
Andrew Boumford '09, the top player on the team's roster, expressed similar sentiments about the importance of the game.
"The game at hand is paramount to our season," he said. "Our team is looking to drown the Penn Quakers with the fire of a thousand suns."
The match, however, may not be an easy win for the Big Green. While Dartmouth is ranked above Penn, the Quakers beat the Big Green 6-3 in a scrimmage this fall, even without the help of their No. 2 player.
Though the match will not have a huge impact on Dartmouth's current ranking, it has a bearing on the team's chances in Nationals, which will be held at Harvard on Feb. 15-18.
If the Big Green pulls out ahead on Sunday, it will most likely end up in the fifth or sixth spot in Cambridge. A fifth-place finish would tie the best result in the team's history.
If Penn wins Sunday's match-up, however, Dartmouth will have to battle the Quakers at Nationals as well, making the possibility of a fifth-place finish at Harvard much more tenuous.
Despite the strength of Penn's team, Boumford remained confident in Dartmouth's ability to come out on top.
"The Penn team has proven themselves this season," Boumford said. "Yet their confident attitude will be the source of their demise."
The attitude of Penn's players seems to be the focus of many of the Big Green players, and the friction has grown from a simple Ivy League contest to a personality-based feud.
Young cited a disappointing lack of sportsmanship from Penn's players as the root of this bitter opposition.
"I think we definitely have a little bit of a personal vendetta against the Penn team," Young said. "A few of them think that they're really badass, but don't really realize that they're playing squash."
Needless to say, the team will go into the match with renewed vigor.
"There are a few people who have been struggling a lot lately, who need to step it up," Young said. "I think [Penn has] a little bit of a ridiculous attitude, and we get more pumped up for that match because we don't really like how they act on court as much as some other teams."
As for what the team must do to win its upcoming game, Boumford offered an unofficial team motto: "Skill wins points, heart wins games."
Before Sunday's showdown, the Big Green faces No. 2 Princeton and No. 21 Middlebury on Saturday, beginning at noon. Because of the disparity in rankings, Saturday's matches will not have as much of an impact on the Big Green's standings as Sunday's match-up against Penn.
The match against the Quakers will be held this Sunday at the Berry Squash Center.
