CMS Women's Tennis Holds Down No. 2 Spot in Preseason Division III Poll
CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's tennis team was picked second in Division III in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's preseason poll, the organization announced today.
In addition, the Athenas were also picked to repeat as SCIAC Champions in a preseason vote of the league's coaches.
CMS won its first-ever national championship in 2018 and came up just short of a repeat last fall, dropping a 5-4 decision to Wesleyan (Conn.) in the NCAA finals. Wesleyan held down the top spot in the ITA preseason poll with CMS second, but the Athenas have plenty of reasons to feel optimistic that they can return to the No. 1 ranking again by season's end, after graduating only one senior (Jessie Cruz) off last year's team.
The biggest reason for optimism is that the Athenas came out of the fall with the top two singles players in the nation, as first-year Justine Leong holds down the No. 1 spot heading into the spring and senior Catherine Allen is ranked No. 2. Leong and Allen both advanced to the national championship match at the ITA Cup in the fall, with Leong earning the win after Allen withdrew.
Leong went on to compete in the ITA Fall National Championships against a field of Division I players, and earned a 6-2, 6-1 win over Janice Shin of Stanford, who clinched the national championship for the Cardinal last year in a win over Georgia. Leong then fell in the second round to No. 3 seed Jada Hart of UCLA, putting up a strong fight before falling 6-3, 6-2 after taking numerous games to deuce.
When they weren't facing each other in singles, Leong and Allen captured the ITA Cup Division III championship in doubles in the fall with a win over Wesleyan. Leong and Allen defeated sophomore Crystal Juan and first-year Anna Kern in the ITA West Regional finals, and Juan and Kern also advanced to the ITA Cup national semifinals before falling to the Wesleyan team which Leong and Allen defeated in the finals.
The Athenas also boast tremendous depth throughout their lineup, as CMS had all four of the doubles semifinals at the ITA West Regionals. A year ago, Allen and junior Caroline Cox (who was studying abroad in the fall and didn't compete in the ITA fall tournaments) defeated senior Nicole Tan and sophomore Sarah Bahsoun in the NCAA Division III national championship match. This year, senior Anastasia Bryan-Ajania and sophomore Devon Wolfe reached the ITA Cup semifinals, as did sophomore Sydney Lee and senior Madison Shea.
The CMS singles lineup will be loaded with Allen and Leong entering the spring in the top two positions, while Tan played No. 1 singles on the national championship team two years ago. Junior Rebecca Berger played No. 3 last year and was a perfect 15-0 in dual matching, earning a selection to the NCAA Division III Singles Championships where she advanced to earn All-America honors, giving the Athenas four players who could be playing No. 1 at almost any program in the country.
Lee played No. 4 singles last season, Cox played No. 5 and Bahsoun finished at No. 6, which will make the battle for starting singles positions ultra-competitive with all of them returning (Juan and Bryan-Ajania also consistently saw action at the No. 5 and No. 6 spots). Wolfe played No. 3 at Bowdoin, while first-year Gabby Lee had a strong fall, winning her opening match at the ITA West Regionals and taking Tan to three sets in one of many CMS vs. CMS battles. Senior Lauren Yamagami and sophomore Georgia Tuckerman will also look to push the incumbents.
CMS will open play this weekend with two matches against Hawaii Pacific on Friday and Saturday, before opening its home schedule on Saturday, Feb. 1 against UC San Diego, which is in transition to Division I. A year ago, CMS defeated UC San Diego 4-3, with Berger providing the clincher in a third-set tiebreaker.