Before play was halted in early March due to the coronavirus pandemic, several Mudders made key contributions to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps winter teams.

Lacrosse

CMS concluded the 2020 season with a 5-1 record, all in SCIAC games, a combined 41-1 record during the last four years against league opponents. Senior captain Zoe Ryan ’20 captured the final SCIAC Women’s Lacrosse Defensive Player of the Week honor for the 2020 season. She helped the Athenas to a shutout in the last game of an abbreviated spring season against Cal Lutheran. She anchored a defense that allowed only two shots on goal, both of which were while playing down a player after a yellow card. In 2019, Ryan was named the SCIAC Defensive Player of the Year while leading CMS to its third straight 10-0 regular season in league play. She was also the SCIAC Tournament Most Outstanding Player after guiding the Athenas to their third straight conference championship.

Swimming and Diving

The CMS men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams both earned SCIAC titles this winter at the league’s annual championship meet in February, taking back the team crown from Pomona-Pitzer. Harvey Mudd student-athletes helped lead the way to the first-place finishes.

For the Athenas, Ella Blake ’23 was named the SCIAC Newcomer of the Year after a big weekend, taking first place in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle, while finishing second in the 1650-yard freestyle. Fellow first-year classmate Gracey Hiebert ’23 was runner-up, while Arisa Cowe ’23, came in fifth, giving Harvey Mudd first-years three of the top five finishes in the weekend’s longest distance race.

Natalia Orbach-Mandel ’21 was All-SCIAC in both the 100-yard freestyle (finishing second) and the 200-yard freestyle (third), and just missed in the 50-yard freestyle (fourth). She also anchored two CMS relay champions in the 200-yard medley relay and the 400-yard medley relay. Rachel Wander ’22 was All-SCIAC in the 100-yard breaststroke, finishing second, while first-year diver Makenna Parkinson earned a fourth-place finish in the three-meter dive.

The Stags won a close 14-point victory over Pomona-Pitzer. Marco Conati ’21 repeated as the SCIAC Champion in the 100-yard butterfly in a new meet record and was part of a record-setting 200-yard medley relay team anchored by Andreas Roeseler ’21. Conati also came in third in the 100-yard freestyle for All-SCIAC honors, while Roeseler was All-SCIAC in the 50-yard freestyle, finishing third.

Sean Hoerger ’21 and Henry Limm ’20 were both All-SCIAC winners in the 200-yard breaststroke, finishing second and third, respectively, and sharing the championship podium. Nathan Luis ’23 was All-SCIAC in the 100-yard butterfly, and Dave Makhervaks ’20 was All-SCIAC in the 100-yard backstroke, with both finishing third.

In addition to the All-SCIAC winners, Nick Tan ’22, Alec Vercruysse ’23 and Matthew Waddell ’22 reached the finals in multiple events to help give CMS more points in a meet that was decided by the equivalent of one seventh-place finish. Tan was sixth in the 100 back and 200 back as well as seventh in the 200 IM. Waddell was seventh in the 200 fly and ninth in the 1650, while Vercruysse was sixth in the 200 IM and 100 breast and seventh in the 200 breast.

Basketball

Senior guard Miles President became the third player in CMS men’s basketball history to earn College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America honors when he was selected to the Division III Men’s Basketball Academic All-America third team.

President, a computer science major, joins Bob Donlan (first-team in 2002), and Tyler Gaffaney (second-team in 2015) as Academic All-Americans from the CMS men’s basketball program. He is also the firsts Mudder and only the 13th Stag or Athena in any sport to earn the award.

President became the 20th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau in February, before finishing the year with 1,023. He is the first 1,000-point scorer for the program since former teammate Michael Scarlett passed the plateau in 2018, and the first Harvey Mudd student to hit the milestone since Dick Barton ’67 passed it over 50 years ago in the 1966-1967 season.

A starter since his freshman season, President helped the Stags to two SCIAC titles and NCAA bids in 2017 and 2018. He was a second-team All-SCIAC selection in each of the last two years, helping CMS lead the nation in team defense last year.