The Case Western Reserve University men's cross country team was represented at the NCAA Division III Championship for the eighth time in the last nine years, highlighting the 2025 season for the Spartans.
Sophomore Donovan Crowley and junior Jacob Slater each made their first career appearance at the NCAA Championship meet in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Crowley went on to narrowly miss out on All-America honors (awarded to the top 40 finishers) with a 42nd-place finish, the best finish by a Spartan at the NCAA Championship since Sam Merriman placed 11th overall in 2017. His time of 24:44.5 was the fastest 8K time by a Spartan in 2025. Slater added a top-100 finish for the Spartans, placing 99th overall out of the 291 runners.
It was the 22nd consecutive season that the Spartans have been represented by at least one men's or women's team member at the NCAA Division III Championship.
A week earlier, both Slater and Crowley earned their spot in the NCAA Championship field with top-seven finishes at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship. Slater placed third overall out of 272 runners at the meet, while Crowley was seventh overall, as each claimed all-region honors for the second consecutive season. CWRU finished sixth out of 37 teams at the meet, aided by a 36th-place finish from sophomore Adam Esa, an 82nd-place finish by first-year Jacob Porter, and an 88th-place finish from graduate student Mike Lombardi.
CWRU also placed sixth at the University Athletic Association Championship, hosted by WashU in Edwardsville, Illinois. Slater was the team's top finisher, missing out on an All-UAA honor by just one spot with a 15th-place finish, while Crowley (27th), Esa (40th), first-year Jay Woodhouse (43rd), and sophomore Brendan Bradish (45th) all contributed to the Spartans' score. Both Bradish (26:08.1) and Porter (who was the sixth finish among Spartans and 46th overall with a time of 26:11.1) recorded career-best 8K times at the meet.
The Spartans were ranked as high as 26th in the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division III poll during the year and were ranked in five of the 10 polls during the season, while receiving votes in another. CWRU was also ranked as high as second regionally during the campaign, and has now been ranked in 62 consecutive regional polls, dating back to the 2018 season.
The CWRU men's team won a pair of meets during the year, placing first out of seven teams at the Daniel Mullen Memorial Invitational on October 4 and first out of 26 teams at the Oberlin Inter-Regional Rumble on October 8. The Spartans also opened the campaign with a 15-50 win over John Carroll at the Bill Sudeck Invitational, with CWRU placing each of the top-seven finishers, 12 of the top-13, and 16 of the top-18 at the event.
Other team highlights from the season included a fifth-place finish among Division III teams and 14th out of 20 teams overall at the All-Ohio Classic on September 19, and a fourth-place finish out of 13 teams at the Pre-National Meet on September 20. CWRU was also well-represented at the Wooster Twilight 5K, with five Spartans finishing among the top six in the race, led by sophomore Adam Joseph, who won the event, which is held on an outdoor track.
In addition to the team's athletic success, 10 members of the men's cross country team received UAA Fall All-Academic honors, including Bradish, Crowley, Esa, senior Solomon Greene, Joseph, junior Owen Schessler, Slater, sophomore Eli Stodard, senior Nathan Webb, and sophomore George Wood-Leness.
The Spartans earned the following individual honors during the 2025 season:
