Season Preview: 2014 CMS Men’s Golf

CLAREMONT, Calif. – With its entire roster back from a fifth place finish at the 2013 NCAA Division III Golf Championships and the addition of three key freshmen, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's golf team is poised for another standout season. The Stags who are currently ranked No. 1 in the Golfstat.com rankings along with the GolfWorld/Nike Golf Division III Coaches' Poll, kick off their 2014 spring schedule on Feb. 10 with the SCIAC Preview at Sierra La Verne Country Club.

While CMS finished fifth at Nationals in 2013, the team also finished second in the always-tough Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). The goal once again this year is to return to the NCAA Championships and win SCIAC.

"In the 14 years that I have been at CMS, we have never won a SCIAC Championship, but when we get to the national level we seem to do pretty well," said head coach Bim Jollymour.

This season the Stags have a senior-laden team, many of whom have experience at the NCAA Championships. Coach Jollymour believes the experience will help the Stags be more consistent as a team and will put them in the running for a SCIAC Championship once again with the likes of Redlands, La Verne and Cal Lutheran.

"In the past, we haven't had a lot of guys who could shoot under par and our top opponents have," said Jollymour. "If you look at the results from our tournament in the fall in Arizona, four of the five guys on the team had at least one round under par. I think talent-wise we are a lot deeper now so I think we might do some damage this year."

The Stags are led by senior All-American Bradley Shigezawa, the defending individual SCIAC and Division III national champion. Seniors Jordan Stein and Patrick Fujieki also participated in the 2013 NCAA Championships as did sophomore Kethan Reddy and junior Ben Ho. In the fall, Reddy won the Cal Poly Firestone Invitational. Sophomore Justin Beck won the Embry-Riddle Invitational in the fall for CMS as well. In 2012, CMS earned a fourth place finish at the NCAA Championships and Aron Larson was the top finisher for CMS. Larson is back in 2014 for his senior season.

CMS has added three freshmen to the mix this season in Jack Adolfson, Samuel Firth and Max Urman.

In addition to the usual SCIAC Tournaments, for the fourth-straight year CMS has been invited to play in the Collegiate Invitational in Jekyll Island, Ga., a tournament comprised with some of the top teams in NCAA Division III.

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