An outstanding 2015-16 year for CMS Athletics and its student-athletes concluded on Saturday, May 28, with two NCAA Division III individual national championships, one by Skyler Butts '16 in men's tennis singles and the other by Tyra Abraham, a women's track sprinter from Scripps.
Skyler Butts
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Men's Tennis
Sr. (CMC), #1 Singles - Santa Ana, Calif.
ITA National Senior Player of the year and senior captain Skyler Butts closed his career with a national championship in singles at the NCAA Division III Tennis Championships. Butts came away with a three-set win (6-2, 6-7 (0), 6-2) over Branden Metzler of host Kalamazoo College for the national title on May 28 at Stowe Stadium.
This is the first NCAA Division III singles championship for Butts, who finished as the national runner-up in 2015. Butts becomes the sixth singles national champion in CMS men's tennis program history and second-straight.
Tyra Abraham
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Women's Track
So. (Scripps, 100 meters - New York, N.Y.)
Abraham won the first national championship in the women's 100 meters in CMS history, leading the Athenas to fifth place with 33 points at the NCAA Division III Track & Field Championships, the highest finish program history.
Abraham is only the second CMS woman to earn All-American honors in the 100m dash, and the first since 1986. She came into the championships as the top-seed, led the field in the preliminaries, and then won the gold medal at 12.10 seconds into a headwind rated -1.7 to win by just 0.01 over Nia Joiner of Illinois Wesleyan.
Abraham added to her All-American honors with a third-place finish in the 200m dash with a time of 24.85 in another strong headwind rated -1.8.