2014-15 Female Athlete of the Year Mackenzie Donahue accepts the award from Director of Athletics Bridget Niland

Women's Track & Field 5/1/2015 9:10:00 PM

Donahue Named 2014-15 Female Athlete Of The Year

Sophomore Shined For Cross Country And Track & Field Teams

AMHERST, N.Y. - Sophomore Mackenzie Donahue (East Aurora, N.Y./East Aurora) of the Daemen College women's cross country and track & field teams has been named the College's Female Athlete of the Year. The announcement was made tonight at the 2014-15 Athletics Awards Evening held in the Social Room of the Charles J. Wick Campus Center. The award was announced in a brief video production and presented by Daemen President Dr. Gary A. Olson and Director of Athletics Bridget Niland.

Donahue has wasted no time in leaving her mark on the Daemen cross country and track & field record book, as she has already collected six all-conference honors (five individual, one team) and has established three school records over her two years at the school.

She helped the women's cross country team to a fourth-place showing at the East Coast Conference (ECC) championship this past fall. She placed first among Daemen runners and eighth out of 91 total runners with a season-best time of 18:45.3. It marked her fourth career sub 19-minute time (in a 5K race) and earned her second-team All-ECC honors. It also marked her 10th career top-ten finish and the 11th time in 12 career races that she finished first among Daemen runners. Additional highlights of the 2014 cross country season included a fourth-place effort at the Penn State-Behrend Invitational (19:36.40) and a fourth-place showing at the Oberlin Inter-Regional Rumble (23:52.40 for a 6K race).

Donahue burst onto the cross country scene as a freshman in 2013, earning first-team All-ECC honors and narrowly missing out on ECC Rookie of the Year honors. She registered a top-five finish in five of her six races and was the team's top finisher in all six competitions. She set a new school record for a 5K course (18:29.20) at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational hosted by Roberts Wesleyan College. Donahue opened her collegiate career with a third-place finish at the 3200-meter RWC Talon Invitational and posted her first career win a week later at the Houghton College Highlander Invitational, running the 5K course in a school-record time of 18:37.03. The record did not last long, as a week later she posted her time of 18:29.20 at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational. She capped her rookie campaign with a second-place showing at the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) championship, posting a time of 23:30.00 in the 6K race, and leading Daemen to the USCAA national title.

Donahue capped the 2015 outdoor track & field season by earning first-team all-conference honors in the 5,000-meter run for the second-straight year. She placed second out of 11 runners in that event at the ECC Outdoor Championships with a time of 18:37.45. She was also part of Daemen's ECC championship foursome in the 4x800 relay. Donahue opened the outdoor season by placing third out of 36 runners in the 5,000 meters at the Coastal Carolina University Invitational with a school-record time of 18:36.68. The record lasted just three weeks, as she knocked an impressive 15 seconds off the mark and placed first out of 11 runners at the Bob Kahn Invitational hosted by Oberlin College with a time of 18.21.72. She also posted a second place finish in the 1,500-meter run at the ROC City Classic with a time of 4:45.86 and placed first in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Brockport Golden Eagle Invitational (11:38.87).

The 2015 indoor track season included a first-place showing in the 3,000-meter run (10:53.53) at the Brockport Mid-Season Classic and a third-place effort in the one mile run (5:27.43) at the Colgate Invitational. A second-place performance in the 3,000 meters at the ECC Indoor Championships with a school-record time of 10:45.78 earned her second-team all-conference honors. In all, Donahue recorded three first-place finishes, three second-place finishes, two third-place showings and one fourth-place performance in her nine individual events this past year.

Donahue is the first cross country/track & field athlete to be named as Daemen's Female Athlete of the Year since the award was instituted in 2012. Prior winners were volleyball player Ye Wang (Beijing, China/Hachioji Jissen), basketball player Monica Kosior (Grimsby, Ont./Canisius College) and soccer player Lindsay Miller (Pocono Lake, Pa./Pocono Mountain West).

Nominations for the award are made by Office of Athletic Communications and nominees are then voted on by the department's head coaches and other full-time staffers. Additional nominees this year included senior basketball player Shy Britton (Rochester, N.Y./Niagara University), senior soccer player Meghan Diehl (Webster, N.Y./Webster Thomas) and Donahue's dual-sport teammate, sophomore Hannah Rice (East Aurora, N.Y./East Aurora).

Print Friendly Version

Players Mentioned

Hannah Rice: 5' 5"; Sophomore

Mackenzie Donahue: 5' 4"; Sophomore

Players Mentioned

Hannah Rice
: 5' 5"; Sophomore

Mackenzie Donahue
: 5' 4"; Sophomore