CLAREMONT, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department earned a 12th-place finish in the final Learfield Directors' Cup Division III standings for the 2024-25 academic year, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) announced today.

CMS scored 820.50 points overall, including 430 points in the spring season, which was the third-highest total in the country, behind only Emory and Tufts. The spring boost helped CMS jump into the top 15, moving up from 18th after the winter into 12th. CMS has now been in the top 15 in each of the last 12 academic years (not counting the two-year hiatus due to the pandemic). 

Women's golf finished in third place at the NCAA Division III championships, earning 85 points, the highest total for a CMS team this season. Men's tennis was close behind with 83 points after reaching the NCAA Division III Semifinals, while women's tennis earned 73 points with its NCAA Quarterfinals appearance. 

The CMS baseball team picked up 64 points by winnings its first-ever NCAA Regional and advancing to the Super Regionals for the first time in program history. They were followed closely by the men's track and field team, which earned 61.5 points with a 13th-place finish, led by second-place performances by Colin Scanlon in the 400-meter hurdles and Kaden Cassidy in the hammer throw.

Men's golf finished 23rd at the NCAA Championships and earned 51 points, after qualifying for NCAAs in dramatic fashion with a -22 on the last day of SCIAC Championships to earn the automatic bid. Women's track and field picked up 12.5 points behind an All-American performance in the 100-meter hurdles from Josephine Jett. 

In the winter, the women's swim and dive team picked up 58.5 points and the men's swim and dive team earned 54, behind a national championship performance from Lucas Lang in the 1650-yard freestyle for the second year in a row. Lang was also a first-team All-American in the 500 free, while Mackenzie Mayfield earned first-team All-America honors in the 200 IM and the 200 fly, and Sun Young Byun picked it up in the 100 fly for the Athenas. The Stags basketball team also earned an NCAA bid, thanks to a pair of thrilling road wins over Redlands and Cal Lutheran and earned 25 points in the standings. 

CMS had a strong fall season with five programs earning Leafield Directors' Cup points. Women's cross country picked up 66 points with an 11th-place finish, and the Stags soccer program won its regional at Colorado College on an overtime goal from Rafael Otero to earn 64 points. Volleyball advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championships and earned 50 points, men's cross country earned 48 points with a 26th-place finish, and women's soccer picked up 25 points with an NCAA bid after defeating Cal Lutheran and Pomona-Pitzer in SCIAC Tournament road games. 

In addition to the streak of 12 years in a row in the top 15, CMS has been 12th or higher in every year since 2014-15, when it came in 11th and then moved into 10th in 2015-16. The program leaped to fourth in 2016-17, and then had its highest-ever finish of third after a 2017-18 academic year which saw it win three national titles (volleyball, women's tennis, women's golf).

CMS then finished 12th in 2018-19, and after the pandemic, it moved back into the top ten after the pandemic with eighth,10th and ninth place finishes in the last three years. The department was also in strong position for a high finish in 2019-20, placing fourth after the fall season, the highest it had ever ranked at that stage of the year, before the pandemic shut down collegiate athletics in March.  

Overall, 18 sports are counted in the final DIII standings, four of which must be men's and women's soccer and men's and women's basketball. The next highest (14 max.) sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, are used in the standings (the USA Water Polo Division III Championships, in which the Athenas finished as runner-up in the spring, are not factored into the calculations, due to being non-NCAA events).