This past weekend was another in a long series of exciting weekends of our Case Spartans Outdoor Track and Field season. The scene was the 2015 Sparky Adams Invitational in Berea, Ohio and the players consisted of rivals like Baldwin Wallace University and John Carroll University. The ever-heroic Spartan squads fought their ways to a women’s second place finish and a men’s third.

Case Western Women’s team pulled through for a strong showing all around, earning points in nearly every event. On this team, we’re seeing the emergence of some fantastic freshmen. First year field athlete Cassandra Laios scored a second place finish in the women’s shot put with an impressive throw of 11.68 meters. Freshmen Natalia Gawlik, Marie-Louise Kolste, and Lilly Faulk placed sixth, seventh and eighth respectively in the women’s 400-m hurdles.

Other remarkable performances came from older athletes like senior Rachel Tan, who not only took first place in the women’s 100-m hurdles with a time of 15.70s, but also hurdled over a 1.55-m bar to tie for bronze in the women’s high jump. Junior Laura Wheeler also left her competitors in the dust in the 3000-m run with a first place time of 11:24.51s, with the next runner crossing the line over 30 seconds afterwards.

There was no shortage of winning Spartans at this meet. The men’s distance squad really went the distance last Saturday. Sophomores Mitch Baller and Andrew Hamm took first and second place in the men’s 3,000-m run and another sophomore Bryan Kelly took the first place title in the 10,000-m run.

Our Spartans can take all of the momentum coming out of this meet and bring it all to the real proving grounds this coming weekend at the 2015 University Athletic Association Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Atlanta. While the rest of us begin to cram for finals, our Track and Field team will be busy bringing home some hardware.