Graduate student Juan Perez won the first University Athletic Association championship in the 100-meter dash for Case Western Reserve University in 35 years to help the Spartan men's track and field team place fifth at the 2024 UAA Outdoor Championships hosted by Carnegie Mellon University at Gesling Stadium in Pittsburgh on Saturday and Sunday.
Perez won the sprint with a time of 10.87 seconds in the finals, the first of three Spartans to cross the line in the event. He became the first champion for CWRU in the 100-meter dash since Steve Ims won the title at the 1989 UAA Outdoor Championships, just the second time the championship was contested.
The Spartans totaled seven All-UAA honors at the championships, including two each by Perez and senior Brett Callow.
In addition to the conference title, Perez added All-UAA honors in the 4x100-meter relay, along with Callow, graduate student Keith Cartwright, and sophomore Josh Bates. The quartet placed second in the event in a school-record time of 41.25 seconds, besting its own previous record of 41.35 seconds. The runner-up finish marked the first time CWRU has placed in the top three in the event at the conference championship since 2017. For Perez, it was his fifth and sixth All-UAA honors and second and third in the outdoor season. Bates earned his second career All-UAA honor and Cartwright received the first all-conference recognition of their careers.
Callow earned a second All-UAA honor in the 200-meter dash, placing third in 22.312 seconds to best Perez by 0.004 seconds. It marked the first top-three finish by a Spartan in seven years. Cartwright placed seventh in the event in 22.50 seconds, and he placed fifth in the 100-meter dash in 11.13 seconds. In the field, he added a sixth-place finish in the javelin throw with a heave of 48.58 meters to total 17 points for CWRU across the two days. Callow added a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter dash with a finals time of 11.04 seconds.
Graduate student Peculiar Nzegbuna earned the third All-UAA honor of his career by receiving the bronze medal in the 110-meter hurdles. Nzegbuna recorded a time of 15.59 seconds to place third after running a time of 15.41 seconds in the prelims. It is the second consecutive year he placed third in the event at the UAA Championships. Sophomore Joshua Park finished just behind Nzegbuna in 15.65 seconds after recording a time of 15.60 seconds in the prelims.
Overall, Case Western Reserve placed fifth out of seven schools competing with 74.0 points. Host Carnegie Mellon won the conference championship with 218.0 points, followed by Emory with 180.5 points, Chicago with 156.5 points, and WashU with 127.0 points. Trailing CWRU were NYU (34.0 points) and Brandeis (25.0 points).
The CWRU 4x800-meter relay of junior Nate Gilbert and first-years Reese Cardella, Jacob Slater, and Seth Tivakaran placed fifth in 7:55.07. Tivakaran later joined Bates, first-year Jeremiah Broughton and first-year Joel Jones for the 4x400-meter relay, placing seventh in 3:31.36. As an individual, Broughton added an eighth-place finish in the 400-meter dash in 50.33 seconds.
In the 400-meter hurdles graduate student Pierce Boucher placed fifth with a finals time of 57.04 seconds after reaching the final with a time of 58.34 seconds in the prelims.
Two Spartans scored points in distance events. In the 3000-meter steeplechase, junior Luke Kishna placed fifth in 9:29.36, and in the 10,000-meter run, junior Aidan Nathan placed seventh with a time of 31:55.21.
The Case Western Reserve men's team totaled three points in the field with a trio of eighth-place finishes. First-year Toby Langsner scored a point in the hammer throw with a heave of 41.49 meters, sophomore Anthony DeCarlo added a point in the pole vault by clearing 4.39 meters, and senior Yusuf Shaaban cleared 1.91 meters in the high jump to add a third point.
With the conference championships behind them, the CWRU track and field teams will have two more opportunities to record qualifying times or marks for the 2024 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships. The first chance will be at the Harrison Dillard Twilight, hosted by Baldwin Wallace University on Friday, May 10.
