Over the course of three days in Beaumont, California, the Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s and men’s golf teams took to the green to compete for the SCIAC championship title earlier this week.
The P-P women and CMS men each won the overall team titles, with the CMS women and P-P men both finishing third, marking the P-P women’s golf team’s first ever SCIAC title.
The individual titles were also swept by 5Cers, with CMS’ Yuefeng (Michael) Ma CM ’25 on the men’s side and P-P’s Abby Euyang PO ’22 on the women’s side. Ma finished with an impressive overall score of 214 and was the only competitor to finish under par. Euyang narrowly beat out teammate Katelyn Vo PO ’24, finishing one point ahead of her.
Irene Jun CM ’24 was the top finisher for the CMS women, tying for second place overall. She finished seven over par, averaging 74 per round.
For Jun and the rest of the CMS women, going into their biggest competition of the season was intimidating.
“There’s definitely a lot of excitement and a lot of nervous energy, I think because it is such a much bigger-scale tournament,” she said.
Some of that nervousness also stemmed from many of the team members contracting COVID-19 during the consortium-wide outbreak earlier in the month.
“[Due to the team cases] we couldn’t compete in the second SCIAC [regular-season competition],” she said. “I think going into championships, it was a lot of just getting back into the whole rhythm.”
The competition took place April 24 through 26. Each day, the players played one round on either of Morongo Golf Club’s two courses. According to Jun, a typical 18-hole round takes her four to five hours to complete, but rounds on Morongo’s courses took closer to 7 hours.
“[Due to this,] it was definitely stamina-wise a lot different,” she said.
The CMS women are a tight-knight team which Jun said has been a new and beneficial experience for her.
“Normally, golf is a sport that is fairly individual, [but] coming into college and having it being with teammates, I think made it a lot more fun,” Jun said.
For her, the highlight of the championship wasn’t her impressive third-place finish but having her teammates surround her on the final hole.
“I think the best part was when you’re playing and you’re finishing on the 18th hole, and you have the rest of your teammates cheering you on,” she said with a smile.
With their respective first-place wins, the CMS men and P-P women automatically qualified to the NCAA Division III Championships, set for May 10-13 at the Mission Inn Resort and Club at Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida.
Though they still have a chance at qualifying for nationals this year, the CMS women have their sights set on the upcoming season.
“We have a really strong team and I think we have two incoming freshmen who are also going to be a strong addition,” Jun said. “So I think we’re gonna try to go for nationals.”