Video Tribute: The CMS Women's Tennis Class of 2021
As part of NCAA Division III week (Apr. 5-11), we will be honoring the senior classes for all 21 of our varsity sports. A number of our student-athletes elected to take a semester or a school year off and could return to action next season, but we have chosen to honor the senior classes as they would have been, without the COVID-19 interruption. The members of the Class of 2021 lost so much of what they had built towards in their first 2-3 years of competition when the pandemic hit, but still clearly left their mark on CMS Athletics.
CLAREMONT, Calif. - The members of the CMS Women's Tennis Class of 2021 began their careers by winning a national title on their own home courts in 2018, and had the potential to end their career the same way as CMS was slated to host the 2021 Division III Championship again with the Athenas likely entering as one of the favorites.
The three members of the CMS Women's Tennis Class of 2021 (two seniors and one graduate student) all produced singles wins in the 5-4 win over Emory which gave the program its first-ever national title in 2018, providing the third, fourth, and fifth points in the Athena victory. They were part of a CMS team that got back to the finals again in 2019 before ending as a close 5-4 runner-up to Wesleyan, and they ended the 2020 season at 14-0 and as the No. 1 team in the nation with their eyes firmly set on winning another title.
Had the 2020 season ended in victory, the Athenas would have had a chance for three titles in four years, and the Class of 2021 could have bookended their careers with championships at the Biszantz Family Tennis Center. Their resumes are still quite impressive, with the three highest final rankings in program history (No. 1, No. 2 and No. 1) and a three-year dual match record of 70-4, good for a .945 winning percentage.
The three members of the CMS Women's Tennis Class of 2021 are as follows:
Catherine Allen (Shoreline, Wash. - Scripps, Legal Studies / CGU, Marketing)
Allen earned All-America honors seven times (four in singles, three in doubles) before seeing her senior season cut short in 2020. She had returned to the program in 2020-21 for a second try at her senior year, while enrolling at Claremont Graduate University to pursue a masters in marketing. Her career record stands at an incredible 190-27 overall, including 100-15 in doubles and 90-12 in singles. She was the ITA Division III National Senior Player of the Year in 2020, while ending the year ranked No. 2 in singles and No. 1 in doubles, including the clincher in a 5-4 win over Emory in the ITA Indoor Championships. On the CMS national championship team in 2018, she had a 26-6 record in singles and a 23-3 mark in doubles, while earning the tying point in the national championship match (6-2, 7-6) to make the score 4-4, after putting the Athenas ahead 4-3 in the semifinals against Williams (7-5, 6-3). In 2019, she added an NCAA Division III Doubles Championship to her resume, as well as her second straight ITA Cup doubles title. Allen graduated with a legal studies degree from Scripps, while earning ITA Scholar-Athlete honors and interning for six months with the SCIAC.
Rebecca Berger (San Francisco, Calif. - Claremont McKenna, Economics-Finance)
Berger may have only played two full seasons with the Athenas due the pandemic, but she produced more memorable moments in that period than many athletes do in a lifetime. Berger had the clinching wins in a 5-3 victory over Williams in the 2018 NCAA Semifinals, and then provided the championship-winning point with a two-set win to give CMS the 5-4 win over Emory in the finals to give the Athenas their first ever national championship trophy. Berger had a career record of 74-14, including 49-8 in singles, and was an All-America as a sophomore when she reached the NCAA Round of 16. She was a perfect 15-0 in singles in dual matches as a sophomore, including another win in the national championship match, and earned the SCIAC Athlete of the Week after producing another clincher in a 4-3 win over UC San Diego in a third-set tiebreaker. An ITA Scholar-Athlete and SCIAC All-Academic Team selection as an economics-finance major, Berger now works full-time as an investment operations associate with Capital Group in Los Angeles, after interning with BPM and Garin, Inc. over the last two years.
Caroline Cox (Louisville, Ky. - Claremont McKenna, International Relations and Spanish)
Cox is a two-time All-America selection in doubles, ending both her sophomore and junior seasons ranked No. 1 in the nation. She combined with Catherine Allen to win both the ITA Cup in the fall and the NCAA Division III Doubles Championship in the spring in the 2018-19 academic year as a sophomore. As a first-year, she had a big singles win in the national championship match against Emory, prevailing 8-6 in a second-set tiebreaker to win 6-0, 7-6 and tie the score at 3-3, setting the stage for the first national championship in program history. As a sophomore, she added the clinching win in an NCAA Semifinals victory over Middlebury with a 6-3, 6-1 win. During her shortened junior year, she returned from studying abroad in the fall to record a perfect 11-0 record in singles and move into the No. 1 spot in the nation in doubles, before the cancelation of sports. An international relations and Spanish dual major at Claremont McKenna, Cox has earned SCIAC All-Academic Team distinction in addition to her success on the court.