Led by all-region finishes by four different runners, including a third-place finish by senior Trey Razanauskas, the Case Western Reserve University men's cross country team placed third out of 37 teams at the 2021 NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional Championships at Blue Lake Park in Shelbyville, Indiana on Saturday.

The third-place finish marks the best by the Spartans at the NCAA Regionals since placing third in 2012. It also puts the Spartans in a strong position to receive one of the 22 at-large bids to the field for the NCAA Division III National Championship meet next week.

At the very least Razanauskas punched his individual ticket into next weekend's national championship with his performance on Saturday. He ran his best 8K time of the season and the third-best of his career, crossing the finish line in a time of 24:42.7 to place third out of 266 total finishers in the race. By virtue of the third-place finish, he secured all-region honors for the third time in his career.

Also earning all-region honors at the meet (awarded to the top-35 finishers) were juniors Jack Begley and Robert St. Clair and senior Logan Singer. Begley finished 13^th overall with a time of 24:56.7, while St. Clair followed in 20^th place with a season-best mark of 25:33.9, and Singer added a 26^th-place finish in a season-best time of 25:33.9. It was the second all-region finish of St. Clair's career, while Begley and Singer each secured the first all-region awards of their careers.

First-year Nate Gilbert was the Spartans' fifth scorer, placing 45^th overall in a season-best time of 25:58.0. Rounding out the Spartans' finishers on Saturday were first-year Aidan Nathan in 65^th-place with a time of 26:22.0 and junior Liam O'Reilly in 71^st-place with a career-best time of 26:26.9.

John Carroll won the meet and the automatic team berth to the NCAA Division III Championships, placing first with a score of 62, followed by Otterbein in second place with a score of 89. The Spartans followed in third place with a score of 107 points, while Calvin (120) and Mount Union (163) rounded out the top-five teams on Saturday.

John Carroll's Alex Phillip won the individual championship with a time of 24:27.4.

In addition to the top-finishing team at each regional championship another 22 at-large teams will be selected, along with the top seven individual runners at each regional not part of a qualifying team. The field for the men's and women's championships will be posted to NCAA.com no later than 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 14.