On Saturday, Nov. 1, the Case Western Reserve University men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the 2025 UAA Championship hosted by Washington University in St. Louis. At the meet—which took place in Edwardsville, Illinois—the men’s team placed sixth of eight teams while the women finished in seventh.
Coming into the meet, the men’s team was ranked second in the Great Lakes Region. Third-year runner and men’s team captain Jacob Slater noted how the team was coming into the meet with confidence following a decisive team win at the Inter-Regional Rumble at Oberlin College on Oct. 18.
“We were feeling pretty confident coming off a win at Oberlin and excited to compete against some of the top teams in the country, because we don’t always get to see that level of competition at meets,” Slater said.
Slater was the first of the men’s team to cross the finish line, achieving a 15th-place finish with a time of 25:21.2. Not far behind him was second-year Donovan Crowley, who finished in 27th place with a time of 25:37.8. The rest of the top five finishes for the men’s team consisted of second-year Adam Esa (40th, 26:03.1), first-year Jay Woodhouse (43rd, 26:06.3), and second-year Brendan Bradish (45th, 26:08.1).
Notably, Bradish and fellow first-year Jacob Porter (46th, 26:11.1) hit personal-best marks at this meet: Bradish improved on his previous personal record by 11.3 seconds while Porter improved on his by 24 seconds. Among the other runners competing in the event for the men’s team were graduate student Mike Lombardi (48th, 26:17.6), first-years Kian Schneeweis (63rd, 26:59.2) and Tyler Ginther (64th, 27:01.7), and fourth-year Solomon Greene (68th, 27:22.6).
Slater acknowledged that the team didn’t quite meet its own standard in this race. However, he is undeterred by this setback, choosing to see it as motivation to regroup and push harder toward their goal of qualifying for nationals.
“For this next meet, the goal is the same as it’s always been: make it to nationals,” Slater said. “We just need to go out and compete. Every spot matters if we are going to make nationals. It’s gonna be a battle, but we can do it.”
As for the women’s team—who came into the meet ranked fourth in the Great Lakes Region—their top finisher was first-year Halina Tompkins; she placed 29th out of 78 finishers and achieved a time of 22:36.7. Notably, this was the fourth time this season that Tompkins finished first out of all Spartans, encompassing all of the races she has run in this year.
Following Tompkins was fellow first-year Francesca Taracila, who finished 33rd with a time of 22:38.6. Coming in 15 seconds later was fourth-year Arianna Holbrook with a 49th-place finish and a 22:53.8 finish time. First-year Reid Smith (50th, 22:58.3) and fourth-year Ayla Grabenbauer (52nd, 23:03.3) crossed the line several seconds later to round out the top-five Spartan finishers at the meet. Among the other finishers for the women’s team at this meet were fourth-year Lauren Iagnemma (64th, 23:33.0), second-years Cecilia Postma (57th, 23:22.1) and Becca Liaw (69th, 23:54.2), and first-years Elena Von Handorf (65th, 23:37.7) and Aditi Mukundhan (74th, 24:29.4).

Beyond the placings, there were strong personal and season performances. For one, Taracila and Smith each logged career-best times; Taracila beat her previous record by 0.4 seconds, while Smith did so by 26 seconds. Holbrook, Grabenbauer and Iagnemma each posted season-bests in their own right.
Iagnemma reflected on the results, noting how it wasn’t the most desirable outcome for the team, but will not deter them from moving forward.
“One of our goals was to try to beat at least one of the ranked teams, and while we weren’t able to achieve that, the team attacked the challenge with determination and did our best to execute good races across the board,” Iagnemma said. “The team has worked hard this year and done a lot of great work despite injuries and missing runners. We’ve had to adapt as our roster has changed, but the women have consistently worked hard for themselves and for the team. I could not be more proud of the team.”
The Spartans will now set their sights on their next round of events. Both teams will be sending their top runners to the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, Nov. 15. Before then, a selection of runners from both teams will be travelling to Wooster, Ohio to take part in the Wooster Twilight 5K Challenge on Friday, Nov. 7.