As the semester continues, so do the athletics teams of Case Western Reserve University. The tennis, baseball, softball and track and field teams all took part in events this past weekend, with varying levels of success while continuing their season.

Tennis

The men’s and women’s tennis teams swept all of their matches over the weekend. The No. 5-ranked men’s team opened play with a victory over No. 11-ranked Kenyon College on Friday, April 3 before sweeping a doubleheader against the Rochester Institute of Technology on Saturday, April 4. Meanwhile, over the weekend, the women’s team earned a decisive victory over the No. 14-ranked Kenyon team on Saturday.

Friday’s match against Kenyon was uneven from the start as the Spartans swept doubles play at all three courts: graduate student Bryce Ware and third-year Trey Lambright at No. 1 doubles, third-year Santiago Salazar Garza and second-year Leon Chen at No. 2 doubles and fourth-years Rohan Bhat and Anmay Devaraj at No. 3 doubles. In singles, the dominant showing from CWRU would continue with wins at four of the six singles courts. In the end, CWRU achieved a 5-2 victory over the Owls.

The momentum continued into Saturday as the Spartans swept RIT 7-0. Not one doubles or singles contest was given up by CWRU, who consistently controlled the courts and never let up.

The women’s team was similarly dominant on Saturday as they defeated Kenyon 6-1. The sole point scored by the Owls came during the doubles play, as the Spartans dropped two of their three matches to give the doubles point to Kenyon; the win came from fourth-year Katalina Wang and graduate student Hannah Kassaie at court No. 1. Singles play would see the team bounce back, as all six courts saw the Spartans emerge victorious to seal a substantive win and their fifth consecutive one against Kenyon.

This coming weekend will be an important one for both teams. The men will make the drive down to Wooster, Ohio on Friday, April 10 to play fifth-ranked Denison University. The women will be celebrating their annual Senior Day on Saturday, April 11 as they host John Carroll University for a match.

Baseball

This past weekend proved to be a challenging one for the baseball team as they dropped three of their four games in a road conference series against Emory University from April 3-4.

Arriving in Atlanta ready to put the pressure on Emory University, the Spartans instead found themselves swept by the Eagles during Friday’s doubleheader opening. In the first game, CWRU showed offensive flashes but ultimately fell short in a high-scoring contest that saw Emory pull away towards the latter half of the match. Game two was largely more of the same as the Eagles consistently took control of the field for the duration of the contest. The Spartans briefly tied the game during the top of the second inning when first-year catcher Collin Pool scored on a squeeze bunt from third-year shortstop Nate Arterburn, but this proved to be the team’s only point of the match as Emory later scored to take a lead it never gave up for the rest of the match.

Come Saturday, in the opener of the day’s doubleheader, the Spartans initially dropped 5-1 against Emory before mounting a comeback at the top of the ninth inning as they scored four runs to erase the lead—though the Eagles responded in the bottom half with a walk-off run to claim a 6-5 victory. The loss did not damper the Spartans’s momentum, however, as they bounced back in the final game of the series to end the day with a split. This final match saw CWRU secure a 6-4 win with improved hitting and pitching, preventing a series sweep. Among the key players of the day were first-year third baseman James O’Connor and first-year first baseman Tucker Greer, who each drove in three runs during the two games.

Next up for the baseball team is another four-game UAA series, this time at home against the University of Chicago. Play begins with a single game on Friday, April 10 at 3 p.m.

Softball

The softball team faced a challenging but eventful weekend of their own against Emory, dropping a doubleheader on Friday but rallying to a win on Saturday.

In the first game of the series, CWRU showed early promise as they went neck-and-neck with the Eagles throughout much of the game’s first half. The second inning saw the Spartans take the lead, but Emory responded with several timely hits including a go-ahead fifth inning and three runs in the seventh inning to take a decisive 8-3 lead by the game’s end. Game two saw CWRU continue to put up a fight but ultimately fell short again, this time in a contest largely defined by defense as both teams struggled to put up points on the scoreboard leading to a 2-1 finish.

Game three would be a different story though, as the Spartans defeated the Eagles in a tightly-contested 13-10 match. CWRU erupted for five runs in the first inning, highlighted by a grand slam from third-year infielder Kaelyn Zusi, and continued to trade runs with Emory for the game’s duration. After falling 10-8 during the fifth inning, the team rallied once again. Third-year infielder Karen Potts tied the game with a solo home run in the sixth inning before first-year catcher Sophia Becker pulled off a walk-off three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to secure the victory—the first walk-off by the team since one against Carnegie Mellon University on May 9 2025.

The squad will look to further build upon this momentum as they travel to New York City to take on New York University in a three-game series. The first of these three games will commence on April 10 at 5:30 p.m.

Track and Field

Strong performance was shown by the track and field teams this past weekend at the Wooster Invitational hosted by the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. As a team, the women placed third out of 13 teams with 108 points, while the men finished fourth out of 14 teams with 77.5 points.

Leading the Spartan charge was first-year sprinter Gianna Phipps, who set a pair of school records at the meet. One came in the 200-meter dash (25.01 seconds) to surpass a record she herself broke the week prior and the other in the 400-meter dash (55.36 seconds) to surpass a record set in 2016. Both events saw Phipps come in first place, making her one of four Spartans with a gold medal finish at the meet—the other three were first-year Anna Callo in the pole vault (3.52 meters), fourth-year Arianna Holbrook in the 800-meter run (2:17.44) and third-year Jacob Slater in the 5,000-meter run (15:08.22).

Among other highlights, fourth-year Anthony DeCarlo recorded the second-best mark in program history in the men’s pole vault with a distance of 4.74 meters, barely edged out by the current record of 4.81 meters set in 2015. Second-year Bailey Bowen threw the javelin 35.92 meters for the eighth-fartest distance in program history, while first-year Esther Umezurike-Chukwu ran the 100-meter dash in 12.80 seconds to tie for the ninth-fastest time in program history.

This weekend will see the Spartans take on two different meets. Most of the team will be taking part in the All-Ohio Outdoor Championships in Delaware, Ohio on April 10 and 11 while select individuals will be heading to Lewisburg, Pa. for the Bison Classic on April 11 and 12.