Next fall, five senior Lakeside student-athletes will take their talents to Southern California.
Over the summer, Anvi B. (Pomona, basketball), Eddie R. (Claremont McKenna, football), Sophia S. (Pomona, lacrosse), Cutler S. (Claremont McKenna, football), and Tatler’s own Connor D. (Pomona, soccer) committed to play Division III sports at Pomona and Claremont McKenna, two colleges in the Claremont Consortium. The Claremont Consortium is a group of five colleges in Claremont, California: Pomona, Claremont McKenna (CMC), Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Scripps.
The Class of 2027’s committed quintet follows in the footsteps of recent Lakeside alums Aidan Streidl. ’26 (Pomona, football), Luke Allen. ’26 (Harvey Mudd, soccer), Jack Scott. ’25 (Pomona, tennis), Will Albrecht. ’25 (Pomona, football), Lincoln Oelschlager. ’25 (Pomona, baseball), Preslie Lampit. ’25 (Claremont McKenna, soccer), and Daniel Zhu. ’25 (Harvey Mudd, soccer).
Last month, I interviewed the five Class of ‘27 commits about why they chose Pomona or CMC, how Lakeside affected their decision, and their journey through the recruitment process.
Traditions, Academics, and Community
In the Consortium, collegiate sports are divided into two teams: the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens and the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags/Athenas. Matches between the Sagehens and Stags/Athenas are hotly contested affairs, known as the Battle of Sixth Street, named for the line of demarcation between the Claremont McKenna and Pomona.The Sixth Street Rivalry is especially vaunted when it comes to football; at the end of their yearly faceoff, the winning team claims the Sixth Street Trophy, parading it through the five schools as a spoil of victory. Eddie said he’s “super excited for that atmosphere…where [the] stakes are higher, and there’s eyes on you.”
While the Consortium’s sports culture certainly factored into the recruits’ respective decisions, the academic and social opportunities provided by the Consortium were also a major draw for the Lakeside quintet. In addition to joining mixed sports teams, students can take classes across the other Claremont colleges. Connor thought his enjoyment at Pomona “would translate from the field to the classroom.” Sophia emphasized “how large the academic database is and how much you can do just because of all the schools and how connected [the Consortium] is.” Anvi and Eddie both pointed to the “small-school, big-school feel” of Pomona and CMC as an important factor in their decisions — thanks to the Consortium, Pomona and CMC tout the learning intimacy of small liberal arts colleges while maintaining the social avenues available at larger schools.
Mentorships and Friendships
Over the course of my interviews, the role of community in the recruitment process stood out. Now-Assistant Head of School Jamie Asaka, a Pitzer alum and former Pomona-Pitzer lacrosse player, supported Sophia and Anvi throughout their respective recruiting periods. Asaka was a Lakeside Girls Basketball assistant coach last season, and her love for the Consortium moved Anvi: “hearing about how great Jamie’s experience was at Pitzer and how much love she has for the school, that kind of reinforced my decision.”
Sophia sought out Asaka as a mentor during the process. Asaka even informed the Pomona-Pitzer lacrosse coach about Sophia as a potential target for Pomona-Pitzer’s lacrosse program. Sophia said “I credit a lot of my recruiting and a lot of the opportunities I got from recruiting to her… she had so many different connections… that allowed me to put [myself] out there and show myself as a recruit in ways that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.”
In addition to mentors, peers played a major role in the student athletes’ recruitment process. Connor spoke of how Zhu ’25 and Allen ’26 “definitely showed that [playing D-III soccer ] was possible [for someone similar to me]” and “paved a pretty clear path for me.”
For Cutler and Eddie, who will share the football field for another four years after Lakeside, their close friendship created a butterfly effect that led to Eddie’s recruitment. After committing to CMC, Cutler called Eddie to tell him the good news. Eddie in turn told him about the final Claremont Showcase, a football recruiting event, that he’d been dreading, and was considering not even attending at all. But Cutler relayed a conversation he had with CMC coaches; they said they’d be actively pursuing recruits at this showcase. This persuaded Eddie to power through exhaustion to go to the showcase, where he ended up receiving an official offer from CMC.
Personal Connections to the Programs
Anvi’s time at Lakeside profoundly shaped the college environments she sought out over the course of the recruitment process, as well as her ultimate decision. She explained: “I’ve had such a great experience at Lakeside in general as a student, and I think my basketball experience has enhanced it, and I … was looking for something similar in college. That’s why the connection with the coach [and] the team when I was visiting and meeting them … was super important for me.” Therefore, it was thus crucial that she quickly “clicked” with the Pomona basketball coach and team — and she did.
Similarly, the lacrosse coach and team were major factors in Sophia’s decision. She visited Pomona for the first time junior year, and instantly, “she loved the team” saying now that, “the coach is so incredible, she’s one of my favorite people. She’s so funny and so awesome. It was honestly the people [at Pomona] that really got me excited to play lacrosse there.” As Sophia sorted through offers from different D3 schools — as she wanted a more holistic college experience than that of a lacrosse-focused, D1 school — she found Pomona’s lacrosse program to be starkly different. “There were times during recruiting when I visited schools and everything was off. The coaches didn’t seem interested. […] They weren’t nice. The team looked like they hate[d] each other. It didn’t seem like they cared about the sport. That was the exact opposite with Pomona. It was just awesome. I love the team.”
For Eddie, CMC was the only school where he had the opportunity to fully engage with his position group (defensive backs) coach — “All the other schools that I [visited], I didn’t really get to interact super thoroughly one-on-one with the defensive backs coach, but I did at Claremont. He’s super experienced; he coaches with a UFL team.”
Cutler also had a D1 offer, and when CMC realized that he wasn’t necessarily “as set on them as [he] once made it seem,” CMC coaches told him that his recruitment was a program priority. In Cutler’s words, “when you have a place that values you a ton [compared to] other schools, it felt like an obvious choice.”
Goals for Last Seasons at Lakeside
The modern recruiting process requires incredible maturity and responsibility from high school student-athletes. They have to figure out what they’re looking for, then market themselves to coaches and teams. Contact and timelines are musts. As Connor put it, “the biggest skill I learned … was just at the end of the day, you gotta just get stuff done. […] It might feel easier to wait five minutes and then do it, but … the hardest part is starting, so you just gotta start.”
As the five soon-to-be college athletes stare down their final seasons at Lakeside, they all unsurprisingly mention title aspirations. Connor and the boys’ soccer team seek to follow up last year’s Metro Championship with a deep State run. Similarly, Sophia and the girls’ lacrosse team aim to make it to Starfire, where the State semifinals and championship are played. Anvi and the girls’ basketball team have their eyes on Metro and District Finals, hopefully en route to yet another State appearance. Unfortunately, despite a strong 7-2 record, Eddie, Cutler, and the football have been eliminated from any State contention. They play their final game, away against Garfield, Thursday November 5th at 7:00 PM.
Lakeside will undoubtedly miss Anvi, Cutler, Connor, Eddie, and Sophia, but we can’t wait for them to shed their Lakeside jerseys and take the next steps of their academic and athletic journeys where three will don Pomona’s blue and orange and two will don CMC’s cardinal and gold.
