Women's Cross Country 8/22/2017 1:13:00 PM Mike Miranto, Associate A.D. For Communications

Women's Cross Country Picked Third In ECC Preseason Poll

2017 ECC WOMEN'S CROSS COUNTRY PRESEASON POLL
Rank	School	Pts.	2016 ECC Championship Finish
1	Roberts Wesleyan (8)	79	1st of 9
2	St. Thomas Aquinas	65	3rd of 9
3	DAEMEN	62	2ND OF 9
4	LIU Post	54	4th of 9
5	NYIT	44	5th of 9
6	Molloy (1)	41	6th of 9
7	Queens	23	8th of 9
8	Bridgeport	22	7th of 9
9	District of Columbia	15	9th of 9
( ) - first place votes

AMHERST, N.Y. - The Daemen College women's cross country team has been picked to finish third in the East Coast Conference this year, according to the ECC preseason poll which was released today from conference headquarters in West Babylon, N.Y. following a vote of the league's nine head coaches.

Daemen (62 points) was one of four teams to receive over 50 points in the poll, falling three points shy of second-place Saint Thomas Aquinas College (65 points). It marks the second-straight season that Daemen has been voted third in the poll, matching the team's highest-ever preseason ranking since joining the league back in 2013.

Led by third-year head coach Paul Lagno, the Wildcats have finished as the ECC runner-up in each of the last two seasons. Daemen returns two of its top five runners from last season, including first-team All-ECC performer Amy Trabert (Amherst, N.Y./Amherst) who posted a seventh-place finish at last season's ECC Championship meet. Also back is red-shirt junior Rebekah Zee (East Aurora, N.Y./Slippery Rock University) who ran to a 15th-place finish in the conference meet last season, and red-shirt senior Katherine Robinson (Pasadena, Calif./Pasadena) who has 18 collegiate races under her belt.

"Our women's team has a lot of new faces, but I'm certainly not labeling this as a rebuilding year," said Lagno. "We graduated a ton of talent, including Mackenzie Donahue who will arguably go down as the best runner in team history. But, we've brought in quote a bit of talent as well. Between our true and red-shirt freshmen, we have seven new runners that will be suiting up for us for the first time, and I think three or four of them have a chance to crack our top seven right away."

Roberts Wesleyan College topped the voting with 79 points, accounting for eight of the nine first-place votes. The Redhawks, who are seeking their fourth-straight ECC title, return four of the top 21 finishers from last fall's conference championship meet.

Long Island University Post earned 54 points to sit in fourth place in the poll. N.Y. Institute of Technology (44 points), Molloy College (41 points), Queens College (23 points), University of Bridgeport (22 points) and University of the District of Columbia (15 points) round out the poll. Molloy picked up the lone first-place vote that wasn't cast for RWC.

In addition to releasing the preseason poll, the conference office also announced that LIU Post's Talya Williams has been named the ECC Preseason Runner of the Year. Williams is the reigning ECC Runner of the Year after finishing first at the conference championship meet last October with a time of 17:42.7 which edged out Daemen's Donahue (18:09.8).

Daemen opens its 2017 season on Friday, September 1 at the Daniel Walker Invitational hsoted by Buffalo State College at Beaver Island State Park in Grand Island, N.Y. It will mark the Wildcats' first appearance at the event since 2011. The ECC Championship is slated for Saturday, October 21 on the campus of NYIT in Old Westbury, N.Y.

For breaking news and continuing coverage of the Daemen women's cross country team, follow @DaemenAthletics and @DaemenXC on Twitter.

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Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Donahue: 5' 2"; Senior

Katherine Robinson: 5' 3"; Redshirt Senior

Amy Trabert: 5' 3"; Senior

Rebekah Zee: 5' 5"; Redshirt Junior

Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Donahue
: 5' 2"; Senior

Katherine Robinson
: 5' 3"; Redshirt Senior

Amy Trabert
: 5' 3"; Senior

Rebekah Zee
: 5' 5"; Redshirt Junior