The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s basketball team now knows its postseason playoff destination.

The Stags No. 11 (25-2) will head to Wisconsin-Whitewater to face reigning NCAA Division III national champion St. Thomas (Minn.) in a 3:30 p.m. game on Friday. It will be the 11th playoff appearance in the last 13 years for CMS, which won both the SCIAC regular season title as well as the post-season tournament.

St. Thomas (21-6) captured the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title for the sixth time in the last seven years. The Tommies are not unfamiliar with SCIAC foes. They opened the season with games in Southern California against Occidental and Pomona-Pitzer, winning both 82-61 and 82-79 in double overtime.

The winner of the St. Thomas-CMS game advances to face the winner of No. 8 Whitewater (23-4)-Northwestern (Minn.) (17-10).

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s basketball team has moved into the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll at No. 22. The Stags improved to 9-0 with a win on Saturday over Point Loma Nazarene.

CMS is the only SCIAC team earning mention.

The Stags have been bolstered by the return of two-time SCIAC Player of the Year Chris Blees who sustained a season-ending knee injury in the second game last season. He is averaging 15 points and 8.8 rebounds to lead the way.

Here’s the Top 25 rundown:

Dropped out: No. 17 Wheaton (Ill.), No. 22 William Paterson.

Others receiving votes: Edgewood 60, Washington U. 60, Wittenberg 60, Rhode Island College 53, Wheaton (Ill.) 52, William Paterson 35, Ohio Wesleyan 27, Western Connecticut 27, Grinnell 22, Bethany 21, St. Mary’s (Md.) 18, Hardin-Simmons 16, Transylvania 14, Texas-Dallas 9, UW-River Falls 8, Rose-Hulman 7, Hobart 5, New Jersey City 4, Hartwick 1, Salem State 1.

The D3hoops.com Top 25 is voted on by a panel of 25 coaches, Sports Information Directors and media members from across the country, and is published weekly.

University of Redlands women’s basketball senior guard Mariah Barbetti-Cort earned a spot on the 2012 D3hoops.com Preseason All-America Honorable Mention list.

Barbetti-Cort was the lone representative from the SCIAC and joins George Fox University’s Hannah Munger and Keisha Gordon, as well as Lewis and Clark College’s Kristina Williams, as members from the West Coast.

Last season, Barbetti-Cort put up a team-high 13.6 points per game while shooting 51.8% from the field. She grabbed a team-leading 220 rebounds for 8.8 per game and dished out the most assists with 102. In addition, this well-rounded contributor nabbed 37 steals to lead the team and denied 21 opponent shots.

During the 2010-11 campaign, Barbetti-Cort registered eight double-doubles and sat one assist shy of a triple-double on Jan. 11 when she scored 14 points, pulled in 11 rebounds and distributed nine assists against Chapman University.

The heart and soul of the Bulldogs, she led the squad to a second-place finish in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC).

Barbetti-Cort’s most recent honor complements her previous accolades of All-America Honorable Mention from Women’s DIII News, the Monthly Newsletter of Division III Women’s Basketball, D3hoops.com Second-Team All-Region, and First-Team All-Conference honors as the SCIAC Player of the Year.

The D3hoops.com Preseason All-America team is chosen from previous year’s All-America and All-Region nominations and is voted upon by a panel of coaches, sports information directors and media members from across the country.

Cal Lutheran unveiled its new $5 million stadium on Saturday and it was only appropriate that the University of Redlands was the opponent on the big occasion, given the competitive games the two have had in recent years.

It was another dagger through the heart as Redlands played a flawless first half and led 24-0, only to give up 28 unanswered points and lose 28-24 when the Kingsmen drove 98 yards in the last three minutes.

As far as the stadium goes, I was underwhelmed. For that amount of money, it could have been better. Yes, turf fields always looked spiffy and this one did indeed look good from a field standpoint. Redlands players had trouble on their first drive with footing which may or may not have had anything to do with the new field.

It seats about 2,500, which seems rather small. The announced crowd was 3,051 which sounds about right because every seat was filled and peole were two and three deep standing behind the fence one end zone. If you’re building something new why not make it a bit bigger. Granted the school probably doesn’t draw that well for every game and no visiting school brings in a bigger crowd than Redlands.

The seating is metal bleachers. Ugh!

There is also no room beyond the back of the end zone. The back end line is just a couple feet from a wall on one and end and the fence on the other.

Other logistics left a lot to be desired. It is an absolute nightmare for the press. Yes, I know accommodating the press isn’t a priority. There is just a small area for the press, maybe about three or four feet by the time you accommodate the crew working the game.

Well right in the middle of that 3-4 feet area is a huge light standard. So in that little press area, you can’t see anything between the 40′s. And the floor is level with the last row of the bleachers so when people are standing up again, you have trouble seeing the section on the field.

There were tables in back of the press box on which to put a laptop, notes. But who wants to be sitting facing the wall, away from the field of play. The only option was to put the laptop on a ledge behind the light standard and lean from side or keep getting up.

Sitting on a folding chair hunched over for a laptop on a ledge for that length of time took a toll on my recently surgically repaired neck.  I was hurting by the time I got back in the car to make the drive home.

There are other booths that are still empty and I thought maybe plans were to put a press area in one of those when all the final touches have been completed. But after asking around, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

It is certainly an improvement over the facility the school previously used. But it isn’t better, and certainly not as practical and laid out at well as Ted Runner Stadium!

Senior goalkeeper Kyle Pokorny of Pomona-Pitzer was named the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA) Co-Player of the Week.

Pokorny shared the honor with fellow goalkeeper Michael Wishart of Santa Clara.

Pokorny earned this week’s award after a key role in helping the Sagehens defeat No. 15 Navy on Saturday evening. He had seven saves in the pivotal third quarter alone, when Pomona-Pitzer outscored the Midshipmen 3-0 to turn a 5-4 halftime advantage into a commanding 8-4 lead.
 
The win helped the Sagehens vault into the No. 1 spot in the Division III national rankings, as well as move them into the receiving votes category for the overall national poll (all divisions). All eight of Pomona-Pitzer’s opponents have been nationally ranked so far this season.

The Sagehens will next be in action against yet another ranked team, when it faces No. 7 UC Santa Barbara on Saturday at 3 p.m. It will be third meeting between Pomona-Pitzer and the Gauchos, who faced each other on Sept. 3 at the UCLA Invitational, which UCSB won 16-4, and on Sept. 10 at the Inland Empire Tournament, which the Gauchos captured 12-7. 
 
 

There are wins. Then there are big wins.  For the University of Redlands they don’t get any bigger than the 35-29 win over North Central (Ill.) Saturday in front of 2,170 spectators at The Runner. Coach Mike Maynard says it is the highest ranked opponent the Bulldogs have ever beaten.

The ramifications are many. First, the West Coast gets little respect when it comes to Division III football and the SCIAC is particularly looked down upon. Well the Bulldogs just struck a blow for both.

The victory is huge for the Bulldogs in terms of stength of schedule, a big factor when it comes to the playoff draw. Last year the Bulldogs went 8-1, the lone loss to nationally ranked Cal Lutheran by two points with a last-second field goal blocked and it wasn’t good enough for an at-large bid. This win helps their cause should they finish second again.

It will likely boost the Bulldogs into the national rankings since they were already in the “receiving votes” category.

No player came up bigger than junior QB Chad Hurst who was making his first collegiate start. You would have never known. The game featured five lead changes in the last 16 minutes and Hurst brought his team back time and time again like a poised veteran. He ended up throwing for 275 yards, running for TD’s and passing for two. He did have three interceptions but chalk them up to inexperience.

Other relative newbies came up big too. Mark Richardson had 103 yards in receptions. Kicker Kevin Grady was stellar too.

The Cardinals left a lot of points on the table, something you can’t do against a good team. They had three red zone possessions in which they managed just six points – They got inside the 10 twice and settled for field goals. They got a pic in the closing seconds of the first half and got to the 17, then missed a field goal as the half ended.

The key came early as the visitors led 13-0, scoring and moving at will on their first three possessions. Then a punt pinned the Bulldogs at their own 3. Give the ball right back and the Cardinals have a short field, probably score again and its 20-0.

Instead Hurst drove the team 97 yards for a touchdown, 13-7 and Redlands was back in it, now confident it can play with North Central, who went 12-1 a year ago the lone loss coming to the eventual national champion in the playoffs.

I like the play-calling of new offensive coordinator Jim Good. I like the poise with which Hurst played. And I liked the intensity of the defense led by Justin Butler, Josh Herrera, and especially Jordan Garcia.

It is probably the best college football game I have covered in seven years. The atmosphere was electric and that was even though the students aren’t back yet.