Mira Yoo
Mira Yoo was a first-team All-America selection as a sophomore last season (photo by Erik Williams)

CMS Women's Golf Picked Fourth in WGCA Preseason Division III Poll

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's golf team, which returns five of its top six from a team which finished fourth in the NCAA Division III Championships last year, earned the No. 4 spot in a national preseason poll from the Women's Golf Coaches Association, it was announced by the organization.

The Athenas captured the program's first-ever national championship in 2018 and made a bid at repeating last spring, before ending up fourth behind NYU, Williams and Methodist. Those same three teams were picked 1-3 in the preseason poll, followed by CMS, which received one of the 14 first-place votes in the poll. George Fox, DePauw, Rhodes, Carleton, WashU and Carnegie Mellon round out the top 10, with Redlands and Pomona-Pitzer representing the SCIAC just outside that group in the No. 11 and No. 12 positions. Chapman (No. 19) and Whittier (No. 22) were also in the preseason poll, giving the SCIAC five representatives, or 20 percent of the preseason top 25. 

CMS heads into the 2019-20 season knowing it has the full potential to earn a second national title in three years. Junior Mira Yoo was a first-team All-America selection last year, while sophomore Amy Xue was the individual winner at the SCIAC Championships and an honorable mention All-America selection.

The Athenas have plenty of returning talent as well behind their two All-Americans. Senior Emma Kang has been All-SCIAC all three seasons, including winning the Newcomer of the Year honor as a first-year, while senior Taylor Hughes has also been a first-team All-SCIAC selection during her career. Eunice Song and Caity Kwun are also back for their senior seasons to give the Athenas a four-member senior class to provide leadership as the team gears up to contend for the 2020 title. 

Junior Emily Attiyeh has been on the All-SCIAC teams both of her first two seasons with the the Athenas, and shot a 69 at one of the SCIAC regular season championships a year ago on her way to a fifth-place finish. Her classmates include Camille Simon, Erica MacDonald and Teressa Ulrich, who will help support the seniors in the team leadership department.  

Sophomore Tiffany Hu was a second-team All-SCIAC selection as a first-year and was part of the six-member CMS contingent to compete at the conference championships and is expected to make a significant contribution in her second season. Four other sophomores (Madeline Brown, Rebecca Chan, Shreya Chatterjee, and Madelyn Kwun) and three incoming first-years (Lucy Bloomstran, Grace Lu, Noelle Song) will help make the 2019-20 Athenas arguably the deepest team in program history. 

To view the complete 2019-20 Women's Golf Coaches Association preseason polls, head to the following link:

WGCA Preseason Poll