From Case Western Reserve University Athletics
Case Western Reserve University senior Sam Merriman placed sixth to earn all-conference first team honors, as the Spartans placed seventh in the team standings at the 2017 University Athletic Association Championships, hosted by New York University at Garret Mountain Reservation in Woodland Park, New Jersey on Saturday.
Merriman crossed the finish line of the 8K race in a time of 26:25.7 to claim the All-UAA First Team honor. It was the second-straight season that Merriman earned a spot on the all-conference first team, after a third-place finish at last year's meet. He became just the fifth Spartan in program history to earn multiple first team All-UAA honors over a career, joining Steve Cullen (1993, 1994), Brian Castleberry (1993, 1994), Matthew Finnerty (2001, 2002, 2003) and Dominic Smith (2007, 2008).
Other scoring finishers for the Spartans included senior Aidan DeSanto in 33rd place (27:16.8), senior Ben Whitman in 34th place (27:16.8), sophomore Andrew Green in 41st place (27:30.7) and senior Zach Roshon in 48th place (27:44.0). Also completing the race on Saturday for CWRU were sophomore David Hall (54th place, 28:02.3), freshman Dmytro Blundell (28:04.2), sophomore Karthik Ravichandran (63rd place, 28:22.3) and sophomore Tim Andrews (72nd place, 29:01.2).
The Spartans finished the meet with 146 total points to place seventh out of the eight teams competing. Washington University won the meet with a score of 40, followed by Carnegie Mellon (79) and Emory (101). Washington's David O'Gara was the top individual finisher with a time of 25:36.6.