• With four weeks to play in the regular season, the Case Western Reserve football team controls its own destiny to a conference championship and automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. But things are about to get a whole lot tougher for the Spartans. On Oct. 19, Case again took care of business with a dominant 52-7 win over Thiel and improved to 6-0. The bigger news of the day was fellow conference member Grove City — ranked No. 7 in this week’s D3football.com Top 25 poll — losing to Washington & Jefferson, 27-19. That loss by Grove City was its first loss of the season, and put Case as the only undefeated team in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference at 6-0. W&J is second in the PAC at 6-1, with Grove City, Carnegie Mellon and Westminster all a half-game back at 5-1. For Case, its last four games will tell the story. It starts Oct. 26 at Westminster, then at home Nov. 2 against W&J. The Spartans’ last two games are Nov. 9 at Grove City and at home Nov. 16 vs. Carnegie Mellon. Against Thiel, wide receiver Noah Coyne of NDCL had a huge game with three touchdown receptions. He finished with five receptions for 87 yards. For the season, he has 31 receptions, 514 yards and nine TD receptions. Spartans QB Alex Fromberg was 13 of 17 passing for 243 yards and four TD passes. Fromberg has 20 TD passes this season against just two interceptions. The Spartans outgained Thiel, 412-72, in total offense. • Lake Erie fell to 2-5 on the season after a 28-10 loss to visiting Hillsdale. The Storm led, 10-7, after the first quarter but Hillsdale responded in the third quarter with 14 points and another TD in the fourth. Keyshawn Johnson scored on a 74-yard pass from Alec Lewis to open the scoring, then Jaffer Murphy’s 39-yard field goal made it 10-0 but that was it for the LEC offense. Lewis was 20 of 32 for 215 yards but threw three interceptions. Hillsdale’s Zach Tetler rushed for 84 yards on 17 carries and scored three TDs.