Case Western Reserve University sophomore Halina Tompkins punched her ticket to the NCAA Championship with a seventh-place finish on Saturday, helping to lead the Spartans to a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional at Forest Akers East Golf Course in East Lansing, Michigan.

Team Results

• CWRU, which entered the meet ranked fifth in the Great Lakes Region, finished with a score of 166 to place fifth out of 35 total teams.

• Fifteenth-ranked Hope won the meet with a score of 84, edging second-place and 16th-ranked Calvin by a point. No. 23 John Carroll was third with a score of 120, followed by 28th-ranked Ohio Wesleyan with 139 points.

Individual Results

• After crossing the first 1,000 meters of the race in 67th place, Tompkins had the biggest rise of any competitor in the meet, passing 60 runners over the next 5,000 meters to place seventh out of 263 finishers. She registered a time of 22:13.5.

• By virtue of finishing among the top-seven runners at the regional meet, Tompkins secured an individual spot in next weekend's NCAA Championship. She also claimed all-region honors, awarded to each of the top-35 finishers at the meet.

• Sophomore Reid Smith claimed all-region honors as well, placing 24th overall with a time of 22:35.9.

• First-year Josslyn Wade had a breakout race for the Spartans, placing 36th in a time of 22:53.9, missing out on all-region honors by just one spot.

• Rounding out CWRU's scorers were first-year Katie Straub (46th-place, 23:09.5) and sophomore Francesca Taracila (53rd-place, 23:17.0). 

• Junior Becca Liaw was the sixth Spartan to cross the finish line, placing 53rd with a time of 23:32.6, while sophomore Elena Von Handorf was 116th overall with a time of 24:21.1.

Spartan Notes

• The Spartans' fifth-place finish in the region was the team's highest since placing fourth in 2021, and a one-spot improvement over its finish last year.

• This was the second consecutive year that Tompkins has earned all-region honors after finishing 26th at last year's meet. She qualified for the NCAA Championship for the first time in her career.

• Smith earned the first all-region honor of her career, climbing 22 spots from her 46th-place finish as a first-year runner in 2025.

• With Tompkins qualifying for the NCAA Championships, it will mark the 23rd consecutive season that CWRU (men or women) will be competing at the national meet.

• This was the third time in as many meets that she has competed in this season that Tompkins has been the team's top finisher.

Up Next

The Spartans will now await the official release of the field for the NCAA Championship, set to be posted to ncaa.com no later than 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 15. The NCAA Championship will be held at the Bull Huyck Championship Cross Country Course, hosted by Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The women's 6K race will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, November 21.