Case Western Reserve University senior runner Melissa Phung-Rojas broke the school record in the outdoor 800-meter run at the two-day Bison Outdoor Classic on the campus of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, while the CWRU women's track and field team won the Division III All-Ohio Outdoor Championships with the men's team placing second.
Phung-Rojas completed the race in 2:15.30, placing 31st overall and sixth among Division III runners. She bested the previous record of 2:15.78 set by Britta Kumley in 2010. During the 2022-23 indoor track and field season, Phung-Rojas also set the school record in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:18.56. Junior runner Jessica Kwasny also competed in the event, placing 42nd and 11th among Division III runners with a time of 2:16.72. Later in the day, Phung-Rojas placed 35th and eighth among Division III competitors with a time of 59.97 seconds in the 400-meter dash.
The majority of the Spartan men's and women's track and field teams traveled to Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, on Saturday for the All-Ohio Championships.
The CWRU women's team placed first out of 13 teams with 111 points, besting host OWU by two points, while the men's team took second out of 13 teams with 132.0 points, falling to Denison with 153.5 points.
Case Western Reserve earned the top two spots in the javelin throw, with junior thrower Adrienne Wachtman winning the event with a mark of 40.57 meters and sophomore thrower Lauren Roskuszka placing second with a heave of 34.87 meters. Wachtman added a third place finish in the discus throw with a heave of 38.65 meters and a fourth place finish in the shot put with a mark of 11.41 meters.
Junior hurdler/jumper Emily Hopkins won another event for the Spartans, taking first in the triple jump by bounding 11.39 meters. Sophomore hurdler/jumper Sarah Ozeki placed fourth in the event with a mark of 10.87 meters.
A pair of Spartans added runner-up finishes, with senior runner Danielle Sarno finishing second in the 800-meter run in 2:20.27 and first-year runner Lauren Iagnemma taking second place in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:49.62. Senior runner Julia Kocherzat and first-year runner Ayla Grabenbauer also placed in the top five in the 1,500-meter run, with Kocherzat placing third in 4:55.87 and Grabenbauer taking fifth in 5:00.01.
CWRU took third place in both hurdle events, with first-year hurdler/jumper Grace Misiunas placing third in the 100-meter hurdles with a finals time of 15.35 seconds and senior hurdler Mia Kilroy finishing third in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:07.91. First-year runner Melanie Taylor added a third place finish in the 400-meter dash in 1:01.50, and senior jumper Mia Vargo placed fifth in the high jump by clearing 1.58 meters.
Taylor, Kilroy, senior runner Chloe Relf, and sophomore runner Marquis Globokar placed fifth in the 4x400-meter relay to end the day, finishing in 4:14.00.
CWRU claimed wins in both the men's 1,500-meter run and 4x400-meter relay. Sophomore runner Hans Holst won the 1,500-meter run in 3:56.16 with sophomore runner Nate Gilbert finishing as the runner-up in 3:56.92. The 4x400-meter relay of junior sprinter/jumper Yusuf Shaaban, senior sprinter/hurdler Pierce Boucher, sophomore sprinter Nicolas Lende, and first-year hurdler/sprinter Josh Bates crossed the line first at 3:21.75. Lende added a fourth place finish in the 400-meter dash in 50.10 seconds, and Bates and Shaaban each placed in the top three in the 400-meter hurdles. Bates was the runner-up in 55.83 seconds and Shaaban was third in 56.35 seconds.
The Case Western Reserve 4x100-meter relay of Bates, senior sprinter/jumper Keith Cartwright, junior sprinter Brett Callow, and first-year sprinter/thrower JD Weaver recorded the third-best mark in program history, 42.591 seconds, to place second in the event. Individually, Callow added a third place finish in the 100-meter dash with a finals time of 10.89 seconds and a fourth place finish in the 200-meter dash in 22.08 seconds, the fourth-fastest time in program history. Callow was bested in the shorter sprint by graduate student sprinter Juan Perez, who was the runner-up with a finals time of 10.88 seconds. He won his heat and had the best prelims mark with a time of 10.85 seconds, the third-best mark in program history. In the field, Cartwright placed fifth in the javelin throw with a heave of 43.38 meters.
The Spartans also had two top five finishes in the high hurdles, with first-year hurdler/sprinter Bryce Hodge taking third in the 110-meter hurdles with a finals time of 15.19 seconds and senior hurdler Peculiar Nzegbuna placing fourth with a finals time of 15.65 seconds. CWRU also had a third and fourth place finisher in the 800-meter run, with senior runner Bryden Moxley placing third in 1:58.17 and Holst finishing fourth in 1:58.75. Sophomore runner Victor Nash had an All-Ohio finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, placing third in 10:11.14.
In the pole vault, both sophomore vaulter Quaylen Lamarre first-year vaulter Anthony DeCarlo cleared 4.35 meters, with Lamarre taking fewer attempts to place fourth and DeCarlo placing fifth. In the two long distance events, two Spartans added top five finishes, with first-year runner Solomon Greene placing fourth in the 10,000-meter run in 35:16.13 and junior runner Stephen Henry taking fifth in the 5,000-meter run in 15:39.62.
Also recording solid marks for CWRU at Bucknell were senior runner Logan Singer, graduate student runner Anthony Hart, junior runner Grace Jackson, and senior runner Jack Begley.
Singer missed breaking his own school record in the 1,500-meter run by 0.21 seconds, finishing the race in 3:48.85 to place 15th and fourth among Division III runners. He also placed 17th in the 800-meter run in 1:52.40. In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Hart placed 18th with the fourth-fastest time in program history, 9:21.60. Jackson had the fourth-fastest time in program history in the 1,500-meter run, finishing in 4:42.91. Begley placed seventh in the 5,000-meter run, and third among Division III runners, with a time of 14:21.63.
The Spartans will next head to Chicago for the 2023 University Athletic Association Outdoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by the University of Chicago on Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23. Action is slated to begin at 11 a.m. ET on both days.
