Members of the Case Western Reserve University men's track and field team earned All-University Athletic Association honors in three events on the first day of the 2023 UAA Indoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Brandeis University at the Gosman Center in Waltham, Massachusetts on Saturday.
Junior sprinter/jumper Yusuf Shaaban, senior runner Jack Begley, and the distance medley relay of senior runner Logan Singer, first-year hurdler/sprinter Josh Bates, sophomore runner Nate Gilbert, and senior runner Joe Jaster all placed in the top three of their events.
The DMR placed second in the event with a time of 9:58.73, trailing only WashU who won the relay in 9:57.81. It is the third career overall track and field and second career indoor track and field All-UAA honor for Singer and Jaster and the first career honor for Bates and Gilbert. The quartet is the first CWRU distance medley relay to earn All-UAA honors since Phil Yeung, Abdallah Soliman, Michael Perisa, and Chris Kelly placed second in 2013.
Shaaban cleared 1.93 meters in the high jump to place third in the event, earning the first All-UAA honor of his career. He became the first Spartan to earn all-conference honors in the event since Graeham Heil placed third in 2015.
Begley placed third in the indoor 5,000-meter run for the second straight season, picking up his fourth career All-UAA track and field honor and third career All-UAA indoor track and field honor. He finished the race in 14:30.76. Sophomore runner Aidan Nathan placed seventh in the event to earn two points for CWRU with a time of 14:40.69.
In preliminary action, CWRU runners earned seven spots in the finals scheduled for Sunday. Bates and sophomore sprinter Nicolas Lende qualified for the finals of the 400-meter dash by recording the third and fourth-fastest times in the prelims, 51.13 seconds and 51.476 seconds.
Graduate student sprinter Juan Perez earned spots in the finals for both the 60-meter dash and 200-meter dash with the fifth-fastest time in both prelims. He ran the shorter sprint in 7.05 seconds and the longer race in 22.76 seconds. He will be joined by junior sprinter Brett Callow, who finished the 200-meter dash in 22.71 seconds, the second-best time among competitors.
Finally, in the 60-meter hurdles, both first-year hurdler/sprinter Bryce Hodge and senior hurdler Peculiar Nzegbuna recorded top eight times. Hodge will be seeded fifth with a time of 8.61 seconds and Nzegbuna will be seeded eighth with a time of 8.72 seconds.
With five of the 16 events scored after one day of competition, the Spartans are in fourth place out of seven teams with 22 points. WashU leads the conference with 54 points, followed by Carnegie Mellon with 49.33 points.
The two-day meet concludes on Sunday with field events starting at 10 a.m. and track events beginning at noon.
