From Case Western Reserve University Athletics
Case Western Reserve University senior Danielle Kulpins earned all-region honors for the second-straight season, placing 17th out of 242 finishers to lead the Spartans to an eighth-place finish at the 2017 NCAA Division III Great Lakes Region Championships at Liberty Park in Powell, Ohio on Saturday afternoon.
Kulpins crossed the line of the 6K race with a time of 22:57.2 to earn her second-straight NCAA All-Region honor (awarded to the top-35 finishers at the race). It marked a three-spot improvement from her finish at last year's NCAA Regional Championships. With the top seven runners from each region not qualifying as part of a team earning a spot in the NCAA Division III Championships, Kulpins put herself on the bubble for qualifying for the meet.
Sophomore Madeline Lindemann missed all-region honors by just one spot, crossing the finish line in 36thplace with a time of 23:23.6, a 79-place jump from her finish at last year's meet. Junior Jennifer Hoffmann added a 44th-place finish with a time of 23:32.6, while junior Isa Torres-Padin (63rd place, 23:57.4) and sophomore Vanessa Pasadyn (74th place, 24:11.2) rounded out the team's five scorers. Senior Rachel Laveson added a 95th-place finish with a time of 24:34.8, and senior Claire Plunkett crossed the line in 125th-place with a time of 25:03.6.
The Spartans top-five finishers combined for a score of 234 to finish eighth overall out of the 35 teams at the meet. Hope (88) and Calvin (113) were the top-two teams to finish, each earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championships, while Allegheny (117), Otterbein (150) and Oberlin (184) rounded out the top-five teams at the meet.
The official field of 280 runners for the 2017 NCAA Division III Championships will be announced on ncaa.com on Sunday, November 12th, no later than 3:00 p.m. The championship meet, hosted by Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, will be held a week from today on Saturday, November 18th.