Case Western Reserve University senior Aidan Nathan placed first to lead the Spartans to a 22-39 win over John Carroll University in their season-opening meet at the Bill Sudeck Invitational at the University Farm in Hunting Valley, Ohio on Friday afternoon.

Battling heat and humidity during the event, Nathan cruised to a dominating performance, besting the second-place finisher from John Carroll by nearly 25 seconds. He crossed the finish line of the 6K race with a time of 19:08.17 to place first out of the 31 competitors.

Senior Luke Kishna added a third-place finish with a time of 19:41.41. After a Blue Streak runner placed fourth, six consecutive Spartan runners crossed the finish line, including sophomore Finn Bonner (fifth, 19:49.61), first-year Donovan Crowley (sixth, 19:54.39), first-year Luke Siepser (seventh, 19:58.63), senior Michael Lombardi (eighth, 20:09.97), senior Nate Gilbert (ninth, 20:13.47), and sophomore Owen Schessler (10th, 20:16.35).

Other finishers for CWRU on Friday included first-year Brendan Bradish (14th, 20:34.25), sophomore Seth Tivakaran (16th, 21:04.17), first-year George Wood-Leness (17th, 21:06.03), sophomore Angel Zeferino (18th, 21:12.69), senior Victor Nash (19th, 21:17.30), junior Ben Smith (20th, 21:19.15), junior Nathan Webb (23rd, 21:50.00), junior Danny Becker (25th, 22:27.33), graduate student Matthew Smutny (27th, 22:54.84), sophomore Joseph Rivello (28th, 22:55.62), sophomore Praveen Sureshkumar (30th, 22:59.75), and junior Nathaniel Hahn (31st, 23:08.17).

CWRU will be back in action next weekend, traveling to the Grizzly Invitational in Shelbyville, Indiana on Saturday, September 7 for the squad's first 8K race of the season. 

Spartan Notes

• Nathan's race-winning time marked an 11-second improvement over his time from 2022, the last time CWRU hosted the event.

• This was the first time CWRU has won the Sudeck Invitational since the 2021 campaign.

• Next weekend's race at Blue River Park in Shelbyville will give the Spartans an early peek at the course for the 2024 NCAA Great Lakes Regional.