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[College Results]

Runa Reta and Rich Repetto Spur Resurgence
By Rob Dinerman staff © 2003 SquashTalk Feb 12, 2003 © 2003
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Runa Reta, #1 and emotional leader of the resurgent Penn women's squad. (photo © 2003 Debra Tessier)

One is a senior captain who has made first-team all-America throughout her intercollegiate career, while the other was
perhaps the most highly recruited American in the country as a high-school senior. Both have won the junior national championships of their respective countries and each is now leading resurgent squash programs at the University
of Pennsylvania. Each enters the final crucial weeks on the 2002-2003 CSA schedule on a roll, especially off their performances this past weekend, when each won important dual-meet victories over opponents who had defeated them
last season.

Runa Reta and Richard Repetto have for several years been the No. 1 players and primary torch-bearers for their respective Penn squads. As a freshman three years ago, Reta alternated with her Canadian compatriot Katie Patrick at the top position of the first Penn women's squash team to ever win the national team championship.

This past Saturday afternoon, she defeated Harvard star Louisa Hall in three wonderfully played games in her last home appearance as a collegian on Penn's Ringe Courts to complete a regular season in which she went undefeated at 9-0. Among her noteworthy wins in addition to Hall were against Yale's Michelle Quibell and, most importantly, against Amina Helal, the reigning 2002 Intercollegiate Individual champion and leader of defending champion Trinity.

Though Reta's teammates were all overwhelmed by the powerful Bantams in Trinity's 8-1 win over Penn, Reta herself gave Helal her only defeat in intercollegiate competition over the past two seasons last month. She then conquered Lynn Leong, Helal's teammate and co-finalist in last season's Individuals tourney, in the semis of the prestigious Betty Constable Invitational several weeks later and split the first two games of her ensuing final with Helal before eventually losing in a close four. In some order, Reta and Helal will assuredly be the top two seeds at the season-ending Individual championship scheduled at Helal's home Hartford turf at the very end of February.

Though the former Canadian under-19 champion Reta has, as noted, excelled throughout her varsity career, her season-long play has definitely been on a different level than anything that preceded it. She had spent the fall semester of her junior year studying in Australia as part of a special exchange program and, by her own admission, was not in optimal condition when she returned for the January and February portion of that year. Chastened by that experience, and mindful of the importance of a stellar senior season to her overall college career, Reta embarked on a determined training regimen this past summer in Ottawa under the supervision of her home club's head pro Heather Wallace, a stand-out player on the women's circuit during the 1980's.

The impact of those hard sessions on her success this past winter cannot be over-stated, as both her game and her confidence level have benefited significantly from the exceptional fitness level she has had to draw upon all season. Reta has always possessed praiseworthy stroke production and shot-making ability, and now these traits are complemented by a level of stamina that often wears down her opponents and causes them to eventually give up open balls for Reta's racquet skills to exploit.

Repetto, by contrast, entered this fall in sub-par condition after a relaxing summer, but his conditioning base has grown considerably as the season has progressed. It was never more apparent, or more necessary, than in the closing stretches of his five-game victory Sunday afternoon over Dartmouth sophomore stand-out Ryan Donegan, whose win earlier this season over Yale superstar Julian Illingworth temporarily earned him the No. 2 (behind Princeton's Yasser El-Halaby) in-season individual ranking a few
weeks ago.

The Donegan-Repetto match was a war that lasted well over an
hour, and Repetto's staying power enabled him to draw away in the fifth game and
thereby punctuate the fine win he had generated just one day earlier in the
Penn-Harvard match, when he defeated the Crimson's fine Caribbean star James
Bullock.

Repetto's win also gave the overall team meet victory to Penn, five
matches to four, which brought the Quakers to the No. 7 team ranking, a
tribute to both Repetto and Coach Craig Thorpe-Clark, who in his four
seasons at the Penn helm has gradually raised its standing nine full notches above
the lowly No. 16 standing to which it had sunk before Thorpe-Clark took over
after several years heading the Vassar program.

Though Reta was joined by Nos. 2 and 3 players Daphna Wegner and Linda
McNair respectively as winners over their Harvard counterparts, it wasn't
enough to counter-balance the far-superior depth of the defending Ivy League
champion Crimson line-up, which accounted for a sweep of the Nos. 4-9
positions and a 6-3 overall team victory. The Lady Quakers also lost 5-4 to
Dartmouth, whom however they are scheduled to face in the opening
quarter-final round of the Howe Cup in New Haven this weekend.

Both the men's and women's programs at Penn have great traditions but both have been in rebuilding modes in recent years; no fewer than seven of the top nine women
in the championship 2000 season graduated that spring, leaving the cupboard
almost bare when current head coach Jim Martel took over in the fall of 2001, and as mentioned the men's program was in a sorry state by the end of the 1990's. But coaches Martel and Thorpe-Clark have both gotten their respective teams on the ascent at present and this undertaking has in both cases been powerfully fueled by the exploits of their R & R stars Reta and Repetto.

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