CMS Men's Golf Earns At-Large Bid to NCAA Division III Championships

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's golf team was one of seven teams to receive at-large (Pool C) berths to the NCAA Division III Championships, and will head to Nicholasville, Kentucky on May 14-17 for the four-round tournament.

The Stags will be one of three SCIAC teams attending the NCAA Championships this year, as La Verne earned the league's automatic bid, while Redlands was also chosen for an at-large with CMS. There will be 42 teams attending in all, with 32 getting automatic bids and three (Emory, Carnegie Mellon and Southwestern) getting Pool B bids as teams that did not have an automatic bid available. 

CMS, La Verne and Redlands finished in a virtual 1-2-3 dead heat after seven rounds of SCIAC play (two regular season two-round tournaments and the three-round SCIAC Championship). La Verne ended up with the narrow win with an aggregate 2057 over the seven rounds, just four strokes over Redlands and six strokes over CMS. In fact, heading into the final round of the SCIAC Championship, the three teams were all separated by only two strokes after the first 108 holes. 

Sophomore Mason Chiu is coming off an individual medalist performance at the SCIAC Championships, winning by seven strokes with a -5, and won the Lee Fulmer Award as the SCIAC Men's Golf Athlete of the Year. Sophomore Ken Kong and freshman Alex Yun were nominated for the Palmer Cup as two of the top-ranked individuals in Division III.

Senior Alex Wrenn is trying to bookend his career with another national title, after helping the 2016 team to a first-place finish as a freshman. Wrenn tied for the individual championship after 72 holes, but finished as the runner-up after a playoff, narrowly missing joining Tain Lee (2010) and Brad Shigezawa (2013) as individual national champions. Juniors Austin Long and Harrison Brenner will also be among the Stag contingent making its way to Kentucky. 

A year ago, CMS came in ninth place at the NCAA Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, rallying back after a slow start to move back into the top 10 in the final standings, after coming in 12th in 2017.