Led by junior distance runner Jack Begley's school-record setting performance in the 3000-meter run, the Case Western Reserve University men's and women's track and field teams competed at the All-Ohio Championships in Westerville, Ohio on the campus of Otterbein University on Saturday.
The men's team finished third overall out of the 19 teams at the meet with 64.5 points. The women's team placed 10th overall out of the 16 teams competing with 33 points. Mount Union won both the men's and women's meets, with the men's team earning 186.5 points and the women's team earning 187 points.
Begley finished first in the 3000-meter run with a time of 8:24.90, breaking the school record of 8:30.18 set by junior mid-distance runner Joe Jaster earlier this season. In addition to breaking the school record, he also broke the meet record of 8:33.13 set by former Spartan Sam Merriman in 2018. Jaster finished second in the event with a time of 8:32.87.
CWRU picked up a pair of third place finishes at the meet, with senior mid-distance runner Logan Singer taking third in the one-mile run with a time of 4:17.34 and junior sprinter/jumper Ben Pinkowski placing third in the triple jump with a jump of 13.60 meters.
The two men's Spartan relay teams each finished in fourth place. The 4x200-meter relay of junior sprinter/jumper Keith Cartwright, sophomore distance runner Michael Smoluk, sophomore sprinter/jumper Yusuf Shaaban, and first-year sprinter Nicolas Lende finished in 1:33.71, and the 4x400-meter relay of Smoluk, Lende, Singer, and Shaaban finished in 3:30.81. Shaaban also took fifth in the high jump with a mark of 1.93 meters.
The Spartans swept the distance medley relays. The men's team, consisting of Jaster, Lende, first-year distance runner Nate Gilbert, and junior mid-distance runner Parker Straight, took first in 10:22.18. The women's team, consisting of senior distance runner Julia Kocherzat, junior mid-distance runner Melissa Phung, sophomore distance runner Jessica Kwasny, and sophomore distance runner Grace Jackson took the top spot in 12:48.48
Two Spartan women took top-five finishes in individual events. Junior distance runner Cecelia Zielke finished as the runner-up in the 3000-meter run in 10:28.77, and first-year hurdler/jumper Sarah Ozeki took fifth in the triple jump with a mark of 10.57 meters.
The Case Western Reserve track and field teams were also in action on Friday, with a group competing at the Mid-February Meet hosted by Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio.
Three Spartan men recorded top-eight finishes at the meet. First-year jumper Joshua Berman placed second in the pole vault with a mark of 3.80 meters, senior distance runner Alex Loeper placed third in the 5000-meter run with a time of 16:01.38, and first-year distance runner Luke Kishna placed fifth in the one-mile run with a time of 4:32.62.
For the Spartan women, junior thrower Tori Cohen finished eighth in the weight throw with a mark of 12.10 meters.
Case Western Reserve will be back in action on Friday, February 18 when the teams host the Ed Finnegan Greater Cleveland College Invite in the Veale Center. Action is slated to start at 2:00 p.m.
