HAVERFORD, Pa. – Haverford College's women's squash team kicks off the 2011-12 season with a home match Wednesday evening against local rival Drexel University.

The Fords' upper class players are eager to pick up where they left off last season after experiencing individual and team progress over the course of the 2010-11 season. The enthusiasm carried into the new year has already rubbed off on the under classmen.

Captains Randee Johnson and Roxanne Jaffe are bringing a new confidence to this year's group, as well as high expectations, beginning with the opening match against the visiting Dragons and followed by match-ups against Smith, Wellesley and Vassar. Later in the first semester, the Fords will square off against highly-rated opponents from the Ivy League in Yale and Penn.

Along with Johnson and Jaffe, the team includes seasoned veterans Kira Jones, Kate Mundell, Zoe Becker and Katherine Pryor, who have been leading already-improving newcomers Alisa Strayer, Caroline Nightingale, Hannah Miller, Miriam Fuchs and Alex Love.

Head coach Niki Clement, in her second season leading both the women's and men's programs at Haverford, expects the ladder to continually change throughout the season. "So many of our players will experience consistent improvement as we roll through the season," explains Clement, "and this will alter the order of our competition ladder quite often."

Clement is looking forward to solid improvement during the first semester of the schedule and expects those results to instill greater confidence as the Fords stride into the second half of the schedule in 2012.

"Our first-semester opponents will be challenging," adds Clement, "but the second half of our season also includes many impressive match-ups and I believe the growth of our players from the early going will propel them into fearless performances against Columbia and Georgetown, and at the Pioneer Valley Invitational where we will see a number of nationally-ranked teams."

The season-ending Howe Cup will provide an opportunity for Clements' players to surprise more than just a few teams as the Fords look to bring home a number of well-earned victories from the tournament hosted by Harvard University.