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Case Western Reserve University senior Bradley Winter, a goalkeeper on the men's soccer team, and senior Ceci Dapino, a midfielder on the women's soccer team, have been named the Spartan Club Athletes of the Week for their performances this past week.
Winter set the career program record for shutouts during the Spartans 2-0-1 week. Winter earned his 17th career shutout in the team's 5-0 victory over Allegheny on Sunday at DiSanto Field in Cleveland. He faced four shots and had one save, allowing no goals for the fifth time this season. On Wednesday in a 3-0 win over Oberlin, Winter matched the program record of 16 set by Ben Yabrow from 2008-11, saving three shots in 90 minutes. He has five shutouts this season, three shy of the single-season program record of eight which he tied as a sophomore. During a 1-1 tie with Wooster on Saturday, Winter saved one shot. This season, he has a goals against average of 0.17 and save percentage of .909, playing all 540 minutes in front of the net for CWRU. The Spartans improved to 5-0-1 with the two victories last week.
The Spartans will hit the road for a sequence of four consecutive games away from DiSanto Field. The team starts with a matchup in Marietta, Ohio, against Marietta on Wednesday, September 17 at 4:30 p.m.
Dapino scored three goals in as many games, including two game-winning goals, for the eighth-ranked Spartans during the team's 2-0-1 week. In a 1-0 road win over Heidelberg on Tuesday night, she scored the lone goal of the contest in the 15th-minute of play. She headed a deflected corner kick into the back of the net for her third goal of the season. On Sunday in a 6-0 victory over Ohio Northern in Delaware, Ohio, Dapino had the first multi-goal game of her career, scoring twice against the Polar Bears. She scored 77 seconds into the contest, firing a shot from 30 yards away that snuck under the crossbar. In the 54th minute, Dapino struck again to increase the team's lead to four with a shot from the middle of the box into the top of the goal. This season, Dapino has 12 points on five goals and two assists. CWRU improved to 6-0-1 with the two victories.
The Spartans return home for Senior Day against Calvin University on Saturday, September 20. CWRU will be celebrating its nine graduating members, including Dapino, prior to the game which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
The Spartan Club Athletes of the Week are selected by the CWRU Department of Athletics each Monday, based on their performance during the previous week of competition.
Honorable Mentions:
Sophomore Yasemin Bilgin (women's tennis) was the team's best performer at the two-day Kenyon Invitational in Gambier, Ohio, over the weekend. Bilgin went 5-0 during the event, winning all three of her doubles matches and two of her singles bouts. Overall, the Spartans went 20-14 in singles play and 11-7 in doubles play against players from Kenyon College, Denison University, and Carnegie Mellon University.
First-year punter Nick Delfau (football) helped the Spartans in the battle for field position during the team's 38-28 loss at Wabash College on Saturday. He punted five times for 195 yards, good for an average of 39.0 yards per punt, including one punt that pinned the Little Giants inside their own 20-yard line with the game tied at 21-21 with 7:55 left in the third. He also had a 62-yard punt late in the fourth quarter, the longest by a Spartan player since the 2022 season. Through two games this season, Delfau had punted six times for an average of 39.17 yards, including a pair inside the opponents' 20-yard line. The Spartans have opened their 2025 campaign with a 0-1-1 record.
Junior Sam DeTillio (football) turned in a solid performance for the Spartans during the first start of his career at quarterback on Saturday at Wabash College. DeTillio completed 13-of-19 passes for 176 yards in the 38-28 loss while running for a team-high 40 yards with a pair of touchdowns. DeTillio tied the game at 7-7 in the first quarter with a one-yard run with 3:19 left in the frame and gave CWRU its first lead of the game with a 24-yard touchdown run with just nine seconds left in the opening period. DeTillio has completed 13 of 21 pass attempts this season for 176 yards and has run for 65 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Sophomore setter Elena Esquivel (volleyball) totaled 111 assists (6.94 per set) for the Spartans during the team's 2-2 week. Her best performance of the week came during Case Western Reserve's five-set come-from-behind victory over Muskingum on Friday night. Esquivel had a career-high 43 assists while also adding 11 digs and two service aces. On Wednesday night in a four-set loss to Baldwin Wallace, she recorded 28 assists, nine digs, and two blocks. In a pair of matches on Saturday, Esquivel totaled 40 assists, 13 digs, two service aces, and three blocks in seven sets. This season, Esquivel is averaging 5.34 assists and 2.52 digs per set for CWRU, playing in all the team's 44 sets. CWRU moved to 4-8 following its .500 week.
Sophomore strong safety Andy Kavcic (football) had a standout defensive performance for the Spartans during their 38-28 loss at Wabash College on Saturday. Kavcic finished the game with six tackles (two solo) while notching the first sack and interception of his career. Kavcic's sack came on the first play from scrimmage of the game and resulted in a four-yard loss for the Little Giants. He then intercepted a pass on Wabash's second drive of the game and returned it 29 yards, setting up a go-ahead touchdown for the Spartans three plays later. Kavcic later added a four-yard touchdown run on offense with 1:49 left in the half, knotting the score at 21-21. Through two games this season, he has recorded 10 tackles (three solo) with a sack, an interception, and a pass breakup. The Spartans stand at 0-1-1 after two games.
Senior middle blocker Amanda Ngo (volleyball) finished the week with 51 kills in 16 sets for the Spartans as the team went 2-2 in four matches away from home. Ngo had a season-high 18 kills in a five-set come-from-behind win over Muskingum on Friday night with an attacking percentage of .429. She had 12 kills in a four-set victory over Mount St. Joseph on Saturday, hitting .474, and added 13 in a three-set loss to 15th-ranked Marietta later in the day. Ngo also added 14 digs, including eight in a four-set loss on Wednesday night, and totaled 10 blocks (two solo). This season, she is averaging 2.77 kills, 0.77 blocks, and 0.84 digs per set with a .301 attacking percentage.
Sophomore goalkeeper Ellie Palaian (women's soccer) had a pair of shutouts leading the eighth-ranked Spartans to a 2-0-1 week. Palaian started the week with 90 goal-free minutes in a 1-0 victory over Heidelberg on Tuesday. The Spartan defense held the Student Princes to just one shot in the contest. In a matchup with third-ranked Christopher Newport on Friday, Palaian had two saves and faced 14 shots during a 1-1 tie. She finished the week with a shutout of Ohio Northern on Sunday during the team's 6-0 victory, saving three shots. Palaian has six shutouts this season, allowing just one goal in 630 minutes of play for CWRU.
Junior midfielder Adam Pluszczyk (men's soccer) scored twice for the Spartans during the team's 2-0-1 week. He netted his first goal of the season in a 3-0 win over Oberlin on Wednesday. Pluszczyk one-touched the ball and sent it past the Oberlin keeper to extend the Spartan lead to 2-0. He also set up the first goal of the game, drawing a foul in the box that set up a penalty kick for CWRU. On Saturday, Pluszczyk scored the lone Spartan goal in a 1-1 tie with Wooster, making a move to the inside and firing a left-footed shot into the top corner of the net, out of reach of the goalkeeper. This season, he has two goals in six games.
Junior Santiago Salazar Garza (men's tennis) went 3-0 in singles matches and 2-1 in doubles contests at the Denison Invitational last weekend. Salazar Garza won all three of his singles matches in straight sets, besting Denison's Aidan Borosko 7-6 (4), 6-4, Kenyon's Juozas Cioladis 7-6 (6), 6-1, and Denison's Arya Ganapathy Kallambella 7-6 (5), 6-2. In doubles action, he teamed with Rowan Matorin for a 7-5 win over Carnegie Mellon's Theodore Gershon and Rian Merchant, while splitting a pair of matches with Josh Davydov, besting Denison's Jacob Patterson and Balraj Idnani 6-4 and falling to Kenyon's Cioladis and Maximo Llamas Castellanos 6-2. The Spartans finished the weekend with a combined 43-22 record in singles matches and a 12-13 mark in doubles play.
2025-26 Spartan Club Athletes of the Week:
Sept. 2: Jacob Slater (men's cross country) & Jamie Goldfarb (women's soccer)
Sept. 8: Mitchell Fein (men's soccer) & Maggie Farra (women's soccer)
Sept. 15: Bradley Winter (men's soccer) & Ceci Dapino (women's soccer)
