AMHERST, N.Y. - The Daemen College men's cross country team placed 14th out of 23 schools at the 2017 NCAA Division II East Region Championship meet held today at Audubon Golf Course. The 10K race is held to determine the region's three national championship-qualifying teams, as well as three national championship-qualifying individuals.

The East Region of NCAA Division II is comprised of teams affiliated with the East Coast Conference, the Northeast-10 Conference and the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.

Daemen served as the regional host for the first time in program history. The University at Buffalo will host the Division I Cross Country Regionals next weekend and the Buffalo Niagara Sports Commission estimates that the economic impact associated with Daemen and UB hosting these events will be approximately $1.3 million.

The top three teams all hail from the NE-10. Stonehill College claimed its second regional title over the past five years. The Skyhawks placed five runners among the top-13 finishers and scored 39 points. Two-time defending regional champion American International College had four runners among the top-25 and placed second (105 points), while Merrimack placed third with 121 points—edging out ECC champion Roberts Wesleyan College (127 points) for the third and final NCAA Championship berth. The 2017 NCAA Division II National Championships are set to take place Nov. 18 in Evansville, Ind.

AIC's Leakey Kipkosgei (Kapsabet, Kenya) repeated as the individual champion, as he paced the field of 158 runners with a time of 32:38.8.

The top three individuals from non-qualifying teams also picked up their bids to the national championship meet. Those went to Southern New Hampshire University's Tyler McLaren (Pepperell, Mass.), Sean Beney (Camillus, N.Y.) of Le Moyne College and Christopher Sims (Lockport, N.Y.) of Roberts Wesleyan. The trio finished second, fifth and sixth, respectively. McLaren came in nine seconds behind Kipkosgei with a time of 32:47.1.

Junior Lucas Canales (Ithaca, N.Y./Ithaca) paced the six Daemen runners who took part in the event. Canales, who ran in the 2015 NCAA regional but did not run last year, placed 63rd with a time of 36:11.6. The time was over a minute better than what he posted (37:17.2) at the 2015 regional.

Freshman Mike Swiniarski (Akron, N.Y./Akron) and junior Timothy Poole (Fayetteville, N.Y./Fayetteville-Manlius) also came in under 37 minutes for Daemen. Swiniarski, running in his first NCAA Championship event, was in 95th place at the 3K marker and moved up 27 spots over the final 7K and placed 68th with a time of 36:20.2. Poole also had a strong final 7K, as he moved up 20 spots and placed 77th with a time of 36:37.3. Poole, the only Daemen runner to compete in each of the last two NCAA regionals, came just 24 seconds shy of matching his time from last year (36:13.6).

Sophomore Josh Bodnar (Fillmore, N.Y./Fillmore), freshman Cale Silvestri (Elma, N.Y. / Iroquois Central) and red-shirt junior Zach Barnes (Jamestown, N.Y./Jamestown CC) also competed for the Wildcats today. Bodnar, who placed second among Daemen runners at last year's regional, placed 88th this year with a time of 37:12.6. Silvestri and Barnes both made their NCAA Championship debut today and finished 124th (39:22.6) and 152nd (43:00.6) respectively.

Today's race marked the 2017 season finale for Daemen.

For continuing coverage on the Daemen men's cross country team throughout the season, follow @DaemenAthletics and @DaemenXC on Twitter.