AMHERST, NY - For the first time since 2006, the Daemen Wildcats have earned an automatic bid to the NAIA Division II National Tournament as they throttled the Wilberforce Bulldogs 76-49 today in the American Mideast Conference Tournament Championship.  The win also secures Daemen's first 20-win season since 2008-09 as the Wildcats improved to 20-10 on the season.  Daemen now awaits their National Tournament seeding and opponent which will be announced the evening of Feb. 29 on naia.cstv.com.

"I couldn't be prouder of my team," said an elated Don Silveri afterwards.  "What a tremendous team effort.  We really got after them defensively and we played with a lot of energy which was key for us today."

After trailing early on 9-8, Daemen switched to a zone defense which seemed to confuse Wilberforce, allowing the Wildcats to promptly go on a 17-4 run, establishing a 25-13 lead with 8:01 remaining in the opening frame.  Keying the run offensively for Daemen were seniors Devon Dawson, who got things started with his first of three makes from three-point range, and Dom Mazzocchi who accounted for seven points in that span.

When Dawson hit his third three of the half with 1:22 remaining, Daemen jumped ahead by 14 (39-25) to establish its' largest lead of the game to that point.  Wilberforce quickly ran off four straight but a buzzer-beating 30-foot three-pointer from sophomore Casey Sheehan put Daemen back up by 13 (42-29) at the half.

The Wildcats quickly ran their lead up to 20 points to open the second half and used a 12-2 spurt to open up a 29-point edge (67-38) with 9:44 to play.  It was all over but for the shouting at that point as Daemen maintained at least a 22-point lead for the remainder of the contest.  

Leading the way for Daemen was the combination of Sheehan and junior forward Jim Regan.  Sheehan finished with 15 points, seven assists and five rebounds while knocking down 3-of-6 from three-point range.  Regan came alive in the second and was unstoppable for most of the period as he shot 7-for-10 from the field and scored all 15 of his points while also grabbing seven rebounds in the contest.

Kadeem Johnson added 12 points and six rebounds to the Daemen cause.  Dawson finished with 11 points as well.  The Wildcats got nine points, five rebounds and three blocked shots from freshman big man Gerald Beverly and sophomore Mark Coppola dished out five assists.  

Daemen shot 55% from the field (29-for-53) and had one of their best showings from three-point range this season by shooting 7-for-18 (39%).  Also key was Daemen's insistence on winning the rebound battle, taking that by a 39-25 margin.

Chris Olafioye and Ronald Hightower paced the Bulldogs with 14 and 12 points, respectively.