Women's Cross Country | 12/1/2022 3:40:00 PM

MEET #8
NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships
DATE: Friday, Dec. 2
TIME: 2:15 PM (ET)
DISTANCE: 6K
LOCATION: University Place, WA | Chambers Creek Regional Park
LIVE STREAM: via NCAA 
LIVE TIMING: via Leone Timing

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HISTORY IN THE MAKING
The historic 2022 season for the Daemen University women's cross country team comes to an end on the biggest stage on Friday afternoon when the top seven Wildcat runners will race the women's 6K at the Division II Cross Country National Championships. The Wildcats are the first team in program history to advance to the National Championship, as well as the first women's team in any Division from Western New York (716) to race at Nationals. 

REGIONAL SUCCESS
As one of the top three teams in the East Region Championship two weeks ago, the Wildcats punched their ticket to Nationals. Daemen placed third out of 19 teams in the Nov. 19 race in Bethpage, N.Y., placing four runners in the top 25 finishers and accumulating a program-best 86 points in the team standings. It marked the highest team finish for a Wildcat team in program history, and was the fifth top-10 finish at regionals since 2015. Graduate student Kassandra Nolet (Fort Erie, Ont.) paced the Wildcat runners in the race, finishing third out of 143 with a time of 22:24.3, tying the highest finish for a Daemen runner at the East Region Championship since Mackenzie Donahue's third-place finish in 2015. Sophomore Marcy Colca (Getzville, N.Y.) placed 6th overall with a time of 22:35.8 to earn her highest finish at the regional championship. Senior Courtney Merrill (Speedway, Ind.) posted a personal-best time of 22:51.1 to finish 14th overall. Junior Camryn Bailey (Geneva, N.Y.) earned her highest career finish at regionals, placing 25th with a PR time of 23:22.4, while freshman Patsy Oberholzer (Greece, N.Y.) rounded out the Daemen scorers with her time of 24:08.0 to finish 46th overall in her first East Regional Championship appearance. Sophomore Emma Cain (Lockport, N.Y.) and redshirt senior Hannah Thomas (Cheektowaga, N.Y.) earned career-high finishes at regionals, with Cain placing 49th with a time of 24:19.8, and Thomas posting a time of 24:29.2 to finish 53rd.  

QUOTABLE
"Last year when we were heading into regionals, we were ranked fourth and we ended up placing sixth, so this year, we were top two, top three within the regional rankings in the whole season, so I think we just had that confidence going into regionals that we could really do this. Everyone executed perfectly, we did everything we needed to do, and it was really exciting. A lot of PR's, a lot of good racing tactics. We're really excited to race against some of the best Division II teams in the country," Nolet said.

"I think it's going to be a lot of excitement, I don't think there's anymore nervousness really, we're just on our own time now. We're just going to go out there and race and have fun," Colca said.

"This is a culmination of athletes that have bought into the culture for years. We have seven women that get to go to Nationals, but this has really been an achievement by the 17 that have been on our roster and alumni in years past that have bought into this and led us to where we are with consistent improvement over the several years that they were a part of it. I think it's a huge success, and I hope people feel that more than just the seven that are going," Daemen assistant coach Kelsey Gratien said.

WINNING WAYS
With Friday's race on Dec. 2, it will have been almost four months to the day that Daemen raced in their first meet of the season, the Sept. 3 Frank Dillon Memorial Invitational. It's been a long, grueling but successful season for the Wildcats. Daemen set a program record for four consecutive first-place finishes, taking home the team title in each of their first four meets of the year, and Colca finished first in all four of those meets for another program record. Colca finished either first or second in five of Daemen's seven races this season. The Wildcats finished second and posted its' best team score at the East Coast Conference Championships in program history with 37 points overall. Nolet finished first out of 71 runners with a time of 18:42.3 to become the first runner in Daemen program history to be named ECC Runner of the Year. Colca was named ECC Runner of the Week for a record five times this season, and Oberholzer was named ECC Rookie of the Week five times. Daemen ran races in four different distances this season (4K, 5K, 6K and 8K), and won the team title in each of those distances. 

Here's a breakdown at how the Wildcats fared this season:

1ST PLACE: Frank Dillon Memorial Invitational (Sept. 3), Daemen Alumni Invitational (Sept. 10), Equality Invitational (Sept. 25), Highlander Invitational (Oct. 8)
2ND PLACE: ECC Championships (Nov. 5)
3RD PLACE: East Region Championships (Nov. 19)
4TH PLACE: Canisius Alumni Classic (Oct. 22)

FINAL GO ROUND
Friday's National Championship will be the final cross country race for Nolet, Merrill and Thomas.

Running in her 27th career collegiate XC meet at Nationals, Daemen standout Kassandra Nolet owns the third-fastest 5K time (18:18.0, at 2021 ECC Championships) as well as the fifth-fastest (22:11.5, 2021 East Region Championship) and eighth-fastest 6K times (22:24.3, 2022 East Region Championships) in Daemen program history in the Division II era. She has four of the top-20 5K times and four top-20 6K times in the Daemen record books. Nolet holds 11 top-5 finishes in her four year career, earned All-ECC honors three times (First Team in 2022 and 2021, Second Team in 2019), as well as All-Region twice (2022 and 2021). 

After making the move from triathlon to cross country in her junior year (2021-22), Courtney Merrill immediately became one of Daemen's top runners. She's run in 13 races in her two-year XC career, and has tallied eight top-10 finishes in those two seasons. With her 22:51.1 time in the 2022 East Regional, Merrill owns the 14th-fastest 6K time in program history. She earned Second Team All-ECC honors in both seasons, and earned All-Region in 2022 for the first time.

Transferring to Daemen after competing on the track and field team for the University at Buffalo for her first two years, Hannah Thomas has participated in 14 races over the last two seasons, and compiled four top-10 finishes. She set a personal record for 5K time at the ECC Championship when she placed 10th overall at 19:46.3, and set a PR 6K at the Highlander Invitational with her time of 24:12.4 to finish 12th overall. Thomas earned Second-Team All ECC in 2022.
 

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Daemen University features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 17 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.

Follow the Daemen women's cross country program on Twitter and Instagram at @DaemenXCTF.