AMHERST, N.Y. – Track and Field standouts Matt VanDeMortel (Geneva, N.Y./Geneva) and Amy Trabert (Amherst, N.Y./Amherst) have been named the Daemen College Student-Athletes of the Month presented by Western New York Knee and Orthopedic Surgery PC for April, 2016.
VanDeMortel, a junior middle-distance runner, posted a top-five finish in four of the six events he entered last month.
The highlight of the month came at the East Coast Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships hosted by Roberts Wesleyan College on April 23. He helped Daemen to a fifth-place showing by earning the individual title in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:57.55. That effort also earned VanDeMortel first-team All-ECC honors. He was also part of Daemen’s 4x800 relay team that placed second with a time of 8:22.61.
He opened the month by leading the Wildcats to a second place finish in the final standings at the Alfred State Invitational—Daemen’s highest-ever finish in a scored meet. VanDeMortel amassed a team-high 18 total points in the meet, as he was awarded 10 points for winning the 1500-meter run with a time of 4:23.15 and added eight points by virtue of his second place finish in the 800-meter run (2:03.29).
He turned in another strong effort just five days later, finishing 12th in the 800-meter run at the ROC City Classic. VanDeMortel was one of 15 runners to complete the race in under two minutes, crossing the finish line in 1:59.03. He then finished fourth in the 800-meter run out of nearly 100 entrants at the Westminster Invitational with a time of 1:56.20—which was slightly off the school record pace (1:56.05) in the event set by Zac Ekdahl back in 2014. VanDeMortel capped his memorable month by placing 12th place in the 800 meters at the University at Buffalo Invitational with a time of 2:04.46.
Trabert, a sophomore long-distance runner, also posted a top-five finish in four of the six events he entered last month. The final two events of the month would prove memorable for Trabert, as she posted a conference record-setting time and earned first-team all-conference honors at the ECC Outdoor Track & Field Championships on April 23 and then competed in the prestigious Penn Relays Carnival five days later.
She claimed the ECC individual title in the 10,000-meter run with a conference-record time of 40:10.13. Trabert knocked 1:30 off the previous record and finished 44 seconds ahead of runner-up Kaitlin O’Grady—the previous record holder—of St. Thomas Aquinas College. It also went in the books as a Daemen record, that is until she bettered the time by more than two-and-a-half minutes at the Penn Relays Carnival. Trabert finished 20th overall, and second out of three Division II competitors, at the Penn Relays with a time of 37:29.63.
Trabert opened the month by helping Daemen to a first-place finish at the Alfred State Invitational—the first time in the team's brief five-year history that Daemen finished a scored meet in first place. She accounted for 11 points on the day, as she placed second in the 1,500-meter run (5:16.19) and sixth in the 800 meters (2:48.84).
A fourth-place showing in the 5,000-meter run at the ROC City Classic with a time of 18:30.96 was followed up with a third-place effort in the same event at the Westminster Invitational (18:44.58) on April 16.
Daemen’s outdoor track & field teams conclude their seasons by competing at the Cardinal Last Chance Meet on May 14. The event is hosted by St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.
