CMS Women's Lacrosse Earns NCAA Bid, Heads To Amherst for Second-Round Contest Sunday

CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women's lacrosse team earned a bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament for the third straight season and will travel cross-country to meet Amherst on Sunday in a second-round contest at 1 p.m. local time (10 a.m. PDT).

CMS heads into NCAA Tournament play with a 16-2 overall record, which included a perfect 10-0 mark in the SCIAC for the third straight season. The SCIAC doesn't yet have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament (it will get one next year when Cal Lutheran joins as a seventh team), but the Athenas did enough to warrant an at-large selection for the third straight season. 

The last two years have seen CMS travel to Colorado College for the NCAA Tournament, but this season, George Fox from the Northwest Conference makes the trip to face the Tigers after earning the first-ever automatic bid from that league, while CMS will head to Massachusetts to meet Amherst, one of six teams to qualify from the NESCAC, which took up five of the 11 at-large bids.

Even though there was no automatic bid in the SCIAC Tournament, the Athenas played as if a bid was at stake, rolling past Chapman in the semifinals 18-6 and then defeating Pomona-Pitzer 15-3 on Saturday to win their third straight postseason tournament title. Junior defender Zoe Ryan was named the SCIAC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, while senior Corie Hack had a team-high eight goals in the tourney, six in the semis and two in the finals. 

CMS played one game against a NESCAC opponent this year, falling 14-13 to Williams when the Ephs scored four times in the final three minutes to come back with a frantic late rally. The Williams-Amherst game had a similar result, with the Mammoths holding off a late rally to defeat Williams 15-13 at home. 

The Athenas mostly come from the West Coast, but a few members of the team will be close to home when they travel to Amherst. Sophomore Eloise Shields (Ipswich) and freshman Abigail Taylor (Winchester) both hail from Massachusetts, with freshman Alex Futterman (Connecticut) and Hack (Long Island) a short trip away. 

The Amherst-CMS winner will advance to the regionals on the weekend of May 18-19 to meet either Mount Union or the winner of an opening round match-up between Catholic and Albion.