CMS Earns Top-10 Finish in Final Learfield Directors' Cup Standings

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Buoyed by the second-highest point total in the nation during the spring season, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department earned another top-10 finish (tenth) in the final Learfield Directors' Cup Division III standings for the 2022-23 academic year, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) announced today.

CMS scored 458.25 points in the spring, moving up from 28th to 10th after the conclusion of the winter season. The 458.25 points was the second-highest in the spring in Division III behind only Tufts, which had 499 and finished second in the overall standings behind Johns Hopkins. Williams was third in the final standings, followed by MIT, Emory, Chicago, Christopher Newport, Middlebury, and WashU. Pomona-Pitzer was the second-highest SCIAC program in 21st place.

Women's tennis led the way for CMS in the spring with 100 points for winning the program's second-straight national title, while three other CMS programs finished third (or tied for third): men's golf (82.5 points), women's golf (85 points) and men's tennis (83 points). Men's tennis reached the national semifinals before falling to Tufts 5-4, while men's golf and women's golf both had strong runs at national championships before ending up in third place in their national postseason tournaments. 

Both track and field programs added to the CMS spring sports total, as the Stags came in 16th place and picked up 57.75 points, while the Athenas were in 21st and added 50 points.

In the winter, the CMS swimming and diving programs, led by individual national championships from Augusta Lewis and Frank Applebaum, earned a combined 117 points (63 for the Athenas and 54 for the Stags). The indoor track and field teams, with All-America performances from Brooke Simon and Christian Campbell, combined for another 44 points.

The fall featured 191.5 points from a regional finalist run from the volleyball program, which earned 64 points, and top-15 finishes from both cross country teams (Athenas - 10th, Stags - 15th), which combined for 127.5 points (67.5 for the Athenas, 60 for the Stags). 

CMS has now finished in the top 15 in the Learfield Director's Cup in each of the last 10 academic years (not counting the two-year hiatus due to the pandemic), and in the top 10 in five of the last six years. After finishing 14th in 2011-12, CMS followed with 13th, 13th and 11th finishes before moving into the top 10 for the first time in 2015-16 in tenth place. 

CMS then jumped into fourth in 2016-17, before having its highest-ever finish of third after a 2017-18 academic year which saw it win three national titles (volleyball, women's tennis, women's golf). CMS then finished 12th in 2018-19, and moved back into the top ten last year in eighth. The departament was also in strong position for a high finish in 2019-20, placing fourth after the fall season, the highest it had ever ranked at that stage of the year, before the pandemic shut down collegiate athletics in March.  

Overall, 18 sports are counted in the final DIII standings, four of which must be men's and women's soccer and men's and women's basketball. The next highest (14 max.) sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, are used in the standings.