School record finishes in the 3000-meter run for junior Joe Jaster and in the 55-meter dash for senior Juan Perez highlighted performances for the Case Western Reserve University men's and women's track and field teams at the Dr. Taraschke Team Challenge on the campus of Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio on Saturday afternoon.
Jaster finished the 3,000-meter run in 8:30.18, besting the previous record time of 8:30.57 from teammate junior Jack Begley set last week at the Otterbein Invitational. Jaster won the event for the Spartans, adding 10 points to the team's total, and now holds the fourth-fastest time in the University Athletic Association. Finishing the 55-meter dash in 6.54 seconds, Perez bested his own record of 6.57 seconds set at the Baldwin Wallace Mid-February Meet on February 14, 2020. He finished second in the event, earning the Spartans eight points.
Overall, the CWRU men's team finished in second place out of the six teams competing at the meet with 112 points. The women's team finished in sixth place with 66 points. Carnegie Mellon University won both the men's and women's meets with their men's team scoring 173 points and their women's team scoring 102 points.
In addition to his school-record breaking performance, Perez took first place in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.24 seconds and third place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 52.21 seconds. His time in the 200-meter dash is eighth fastest in the UAA. Altogether, Perez earned 24 points.
Senior Logan Singer won the one-mile run for Case Western Reserve, finishing in a time of 4:21.96. The time is currently the seventh-fastest mark in the UAA and the fastest by a Spartan this season. Sophomore Yusuf Shaaban added a win in the high jump, clearing 1.85 meters at the meet. He also added high finishes in the 400-meter dash (52.98 seconds, sixth place) and as part of the 4x200-meter relay team (1:35.19, second place) with junior Keith Cartwright, sophomore Michael Smoluk, and senior Peter Chin. Shaaban helped earn the Spartans 19 points at the meet.
Cartwright took second place in the 200-meter dash, finishing in 23.47 seconds. Three Spartans finished in the top five in that event, with Smoluk recording the fifth-fastest time in addition to Perez's win. In the 55-meter dash, Cartwright added four points and a fourth-place finish with a time of 6.64 seconds. The distance medley relay team of first-year Nate Gilbert, junior Will Dehmler, senior Bryden Moxley, and first-year Luke Kishna seized the Spartans' other second place finish with a time of 10:47.13.
Adding points for the Spartan men were Gilbert (800-meter run, third), junior Kenny Suen (triple jump, fourth), junior Peculiar Nzegbuna (55-meter hurdles, fourth), sophomore Jack Wragan (pole vault, fifth), first-year Utah Strobel (55-meter hurdles, sixth), first-year Hans Holst (one-mile run, sixth), and first-year Kunal Chand (pole vault, sixth).
For the Spartan women, junior Catherine Phillips earned the team 10 points with a first place finish in the 5000-meter run with a time of 19:09.95. First-year Sarah Ozeki took second place in the triple jump with a leap of 10.30 meters, the eighth-best mark in the UAA. She also added a fourth-place finish in the 55-meter hurdles, finishing in 9.01 seconds. Sophomore Grace Jackson grabbed the other second place individual finish for CWRU, ending the one-mile run in 5:24.78.
The distance medley relay team of senior Julia Kocherzat, sophomore Jessica Kwasny, junior Melissa Phung, and graduate student Anna Mollnhuber finished in second place in the event with a time of 13:08.55. Kwasny also added a fourth-place finish with a time of 2:24.02 in the 800-meter run. Sophomore Anna Zinsser contributed third place finishes for a combined 12 points in two events, the 55-meter dash (7.62 seconds) and the 200-meter dash (27.53 seconds). Adding the Spartans' other third-place finish was junior Cecelia Zielke in the 3000-meter run with a time of 10:22.03.
Three CWRU athletes added fifth-place finishes and two points each to the team's tally: junior Victoria Zhao (pole vault, 3.15 meters), junior Mia Kilroy (55-meter hurdles, 9.40 seconds), and sophomore Elise Moore (400-meter run, 1:03.21).
Case Western Reserve returns home on Saturday, February 5 for the team's only dual meet of the season. The Spartans will take on the Tartans from Carnegie Mellon in the 13th Annual Battle for the Obelisk.
