Birchard, Umemoto, Parise Win Year-End CMS Department Awards
CLAREMONT, Calif. – Senior men's soccer player William Birchard, senior women's swimmer Allie Umemoto and senior football player Nick Parise and won year-end Claremont-Mudd-Scripps awards in a vote of the department's 17 head coaches and administrative personnel.
Birchard captured the Hank Krieger Award, given to a graduating senior who displays athletic excellence, academic excellence and leadership, Umemoto earned the Noelle and Veronique Boucquey Outstanding Scholar-Athlete Award from Scripps, and Parise captured the Dickinson Award, presented to the one member of the CMC student body who above all others typifies those qualities of athletic participation which are beneficial to the student body in campus life as well as in athletics.
Birchard was a second-team All-America selection from the United Soccer Coaches as a junior in 2019, after earning third-team honors from d3soccer.com as a sophomore. During his junior year, he helped lead the Stags to a SCIAC tite and an NCAA Regional Championship, the program's first regional title since 1985, scoring both goals in a 2-0 NCAA opening round win over Texas Lutheran and the game-winner in the second half of a win over Occidental in the SCIAC semifinals.
As a sophomore, Birchard was part of a record-setting defensive unit as an outside back, contributing to 15 shutouts in 18 games, but was also a dangerous offensive weapon on free kicks. He had numerous big goals, including the game-winners over Redlands and Occidental in the final week of the regular season to give CMS the 2018 regular season title. Birchard leaves Claremont with a bachelor's in economics and a master's in finance, and will become a financial analyst at Apple.
Umemoto helped lead CMS to a SCIAC Championship in 2020, winning back the title after two straight runner-up finishes. She earned All-America honors with the CMS 400 free relay team, which earned an NCAA qualifying time before the NCAA championships were canceled. After studying abroad in the fall, she reached the finals at SCIACs in all three of her individual events, coming in fifth in the 100 free, sixth in the 200 free and seventh in the 200 fly to give the Athenas 45 points towards their SCIAC title.
As a sophomore in 2019, Umemoto was part of an 800 free relay team that won a SCIAC title before setting a program-record time at nationals. A dual major in sociology and politics at Scripps, she carried around a 3.9 grade point average and has been a SCIAC All-Academic team selection every year, She was also a member of 5C Refugee Advocacy Network, a Mentor for Uncommon Good, and spent last summer as a programs intern with the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.
Parise served as a team captain for the CMS Football team in 2019, after helping the Stags to their first SCIAC Championship since 1987 and their first-ever NCAA Division III Tournament bid as a sophomore in 2018. He developed into an important two-way threat as a tight end, both as a blocker for the potent CMS ground attack, and as a receiver. He caught a touchdown pass as a freshman on his only reception, and then had two touchdown catches as a sophomore in 2018, pulling down one in each of the first two games against Puget Sound and Northwestern.
Parise overcame a lacerated kidney in 2019 and remained actively involved and in a leadership role before his return, adding 10 more catches to his career total, including a career-long 47-yarder in the rematch with Northwestern. An economics and public policy major, Parise has taken additional coursework in finance and health policy.
The Hank Krieger Award was established in 2000 in honor of Hank Krieger, following his retirement as the CMS men's tennis coach in 1999 at the conclusion of a career which saw him lead the Stags to the 1981 NCAA Division III National Championship. The Boucquey Award was established in 2006 by Thierry Boucquey, professor of French at Scripps College, in honor of his daughters, Noelle and Veronique. The Dickinson Award is the longest-standing department award (other than the CMC Athlete of the Year) and was first presented in 1960 in memory of Bill Dickinson (CMC '60), who played on the Pomona-Claremont baseball team in 1958 before being diagnosed with cancer. He stayed on as the Claremont-Mudd team manager/statistician after having his leg amputated, but passed away just before his graduation.