CMS Women's Golf Moves Up to Second Place at Midway Point of NCAA Championships
GolfStat Scoring
HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS, Fla. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's golf team moved up four spots to second place on the leaderboard and into firm contention for the national championship on the second day of the NCAA Division III Golf Championships at the El Campeon Golf Course at the Mission Inn Resort and Club on Wednesday.
CMS came into the day in sixth place overall, just six shots back of Emory on a tight leaderboard, and now stands in second place, just five strokes behind team leader George Fox with two rounds still to play on Thursday and Friday. Play was halted due to darkness, with several teams still having one or two holes left to finish.
The championship has been contested on a difficult par-73 course where only one individual (out of 152) are shooting lower than +6 after the first 36 holes, and shooting pars often allows teams to ascend up the leaderboard.
The Athenas shot a 313 (+21) on the second day, trimming eight shots off an opening-round 321 (+29) to stand at +50 through two rounds.
Esther Lee had a strong performance on Wednesday, including an eagle on the par-5 10th hole, as well as birdies on the first and 14th, finishing with a 75 that moves her up into the top 10 (tied for eighth) and in contention for the indvidual title, just five shots off the lead. Irene Jun also had a run of three birdies in a span of four holes (No. 7, No. 9 and No. 10) on her way to a second-round 79.
Stella Cheng was steady after a slow start with 11 pars on her final 13 holes, with a birdie on 12 offsetting a bogey on 10, allowing her to finish with a 78 after standing at +5 through her first five. Cheng and Lee combining to shoot -1 on the back nine was a big factor in CMS making a surge up the leaderboard as the second round came to a close.
The tight team leaderboard also includes Pomona-Pitzer in third at +54, and a three-way tie for fourth at +55 between WashU, Emory and Carnegie Mellon at +55. Redlands is in eighth at +63.
The third day of the NCAA Division III Golf Championships will get underway tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., as CMS will look to have another solid round to set itself up for a possible championship run on Friday. The Athenas won the national title in 2018, finished fourth in 2019 and came in ninth last year after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.