Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Illinois Wesleyan finished the 2026 NCAA Division III men’s golf championship tied at 1,135. The title went to sudden death, and the Stags won it.
It is the second team championship in program history for CMS and the first since 2016. Freshman Sebi Aliaga won the individual national championship in the same week, giving the program both trophies for the first time.
The result
| Champion | Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (1,135) |
| Second | Illinois Wesleyan (1,135) |
| Decided by | Sudden death playoff |
| Individual champion | Sebi Aliaga, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (277, 10 under) |
| Head coach | Mitchell Fedorka |
| Site | Mission Resort & Club, Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida |
| Courses | El Campeon (par 72) and Las Colinas (par 71) |
| Dates | May 12 to 15, 2026 |
The field
The championship opened with 43 teams and 10 individuals not attached to those teams. Thirty four conferences received automatic qualification, and the nine remaining berths were awarded at large to teams from automatic qualifying conferences that did not win their conference, and to independents.
After 36 holes the field was cut to the top 18 teams and the top six individuals outside those teams. CMS was among the 18 that played the weekend.
CMS reached Florida as an automatic qualifier out of the SCIAC. The nine at large berths went to Huntingdon, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Oglethorpe, Kenyon, Trinity (Texas), Gustavus Adolphus, Babson and Washington and Lee.
The field was not a soft one. Methodist arrived as the two time defending champion. Huntingdon came in ranked first in Division III. The at large group alone contained three former national champions: Carnegie Mellon, winner in 2023, Oglethorpe, winner in 2009 and 2012, and Gustavus Adolphus, winner in 2004. All of them were beaten.
The golf course
The first two rounds were split between El Campeon, a par 72 playing 6,778 yards, and Las Colinas, a par 71 playing 6,820 yards. After the cut, the final two rounds were played on El Campeon alone.
That sets the arithmetic. A team counts four scores per round, so team par for the championship was 1,148. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Illinois Wesleyan both finished on 1,135, which is 13 under par across four rounds. Washington and Lee, sixth at 1,155, was seven over.
The number
At 1,135, CMS posted the second lowest winning total in the history of the championship across four rounds. The only lower mark is Methodist’s 1,131 in 2024.
For comparison, the winning score has come in above 1,150 in eight of the last ten completed championships. Methodist won at 1,175 in 2025. Illinois Wesleyan won at 1,155 in 2021 and 1,174 in 2019. The 2026 championship was played at a scoring level the event rarely sees.
Conditions were part of that. The forecast for championship week called for sun, highs from 86 to 91 degrees, and winds between four and eight miles per hour. Heat with very little wind is scoring weather. Two teams reaching 13 under par in the same championship is still remarkable, but it did not happen in a gale.
Ten years between titles
CMS won its first team championship in 2016 at Penfield, New York, shooting 1,198 to beat Huntingdon by six shots under head coach Bim Jollymour. The 2026 title comes under Mitchell Fedorka, with assistants Peter Bonilla and Andres Cabral.
A full decade separates the two titles, and 63 shots separate the two winning totals. Different course, different state, different era of Division III scoring.
Aliaga beat the top ranked player in Division III
Sebi Aliaga won the individual title at 277, ten under par. He finished one stroke ahead of Jonathan McEwen of Washington and Lee, who closed at 278.
That margin is the story. McEwen had been the number one ranked golfer in Division III since March 2025. He was ODAC Player of the Year, a Ben Hogan Award watch list selection, and one of only four Division III players ever chosen for the Arnold Palmer Cup. He shot 71, 70, 68, 69 in Florida, three of four rounds under par, and lost.
Aliaga is a freshman from Hillsborough, California, and a graduate of Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose. He is the third individual national champion CMS men’s golf has produced, following Tain Lee in 2010 and Bradley Shigezawa in 2013. Neither of those titles came in a year CMS won the team championship, and the 2016 team title did not come with an individual winner. Aliaga’s win is the first time the program has taken both in the same season.
Final individual leaderboard, top five
| Pos | Player | School | Score |
| 1 | Sebi Aliaga | Claremont-Mudd-Scripps | 277 (10 under) |
| 2 | Jonathan McEwen | Washington and Lee | 278 (9 under) |
| T3 | Tim Kaufman | Washington and Lee | 280 (7 under) |
| T3 | Adrian Jordan | Kenyon | 280 (7 under) |
| T5 | Alan Van Asch | Lynchburg | 281 (6 under) |
| T5 | Nikko Taggart | Southern Virginia | 281 (6 under) |
What CMS interrupted
Methodist holds 15 Division III men’s golf titles, more than any other program, and had won three of the previous four, taking 2022, 2024 and 2025.
Illinois Wesleyan has been the event’s most consistent challenger. The Titans won in 2019 and 2021 and have now finished second three times, in 2011, 2025 and 2026. Losing in a playoff one year after losing by five shots is a hard way to spend two seasons.
Carnegie Mellon was in the field as well. The Tartans won the championship in 2023 and lost the 2024 title to Methodist by a single stroke, 1,132 to 1,131. Three of the last four championships have been decided by five strokes or fewer, and two of the last three by a single stroke or a playoff.
The roster behind it
CMS carried nine players in 2025-26: four freshmen, three sophomores, one junior and one senior. Seven of the nine are from the San Francisco Bay Area, one from Diamond Bar, California, and one from Vancouver, British Columbia. A Southern California program won a national championship with a roster recruited largely out of Northern California.
The team practices at Via Verde Country Club in San Dimas, Goose Creek Golf Club in Jurupa Valley, Red Hill Country Club in Rancho Cucamonga, and Mountain Meadows Golf Course in Pomona.
The Division III context
CMS is the joint athletic program of Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College and Scripps College, competing in the SCIAC. Division III does not award athletic scholarships. Every player on the roster that just won a national championship is paying for school on the same terms as any other student, buying their own equipment, and fitting a competitive schedule around a full academic load.
That is the structural reality behind every Division III championship, and it is the reason name, image and likeness support matters at this level. The recognition for winning a Division III national title tends to stop at a press release. The support has to come from the people who were paying attention.
Second title in program history. First in ten years. First individual and team championship in the same season. Won in sudden death.
