Laplante Named Male Newcomer of the Year

Junior transfer led Daemen men’s tennis in multiple categories this past season

5/6/2022 7:53:00 PM

By: By Joe Kraus, Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

AMHERST, N.Y. – Tennis student-athlete Zachary Laplante (Ottawa, Ont.) has been named the 2021-22 Daemen University Male Newcomer of the Year. The announcement was made this evening at the Wildcat Night of Honors, an annual event held on campus to recognize the achievements of the university's intercollegiate teams and student-athletes.

The 6-foot-1 junior made an immediate impact in his first season with the program during both the fall and spring sessions. Laplante led the Wildcats in total singles wins (6) and overall wins (12) and tied for the team lead with fellow classmate Phillip Vance (Orchard Park, N.Y.) with six doubles wins this season – all of which came while paired together. Four of Laplante's six individual wins came in third singles while he and Vance earned five of their six victories as a tandem in second doubles play.

A junior transfer, Laplante previously spent two seasons at Salem University (W.Va.) before transferring to Main Street this past fall. In Daemen's season opener at RIT on September 15, Laplante recorded the first win of his Daemen career, defeating Joel Pho in fourth singles. Later, on October 10, Laplante and Vance recorded their first win together in third doubles against Le Moyne.

In a stretch from March 9-25, Laplante and Vance won doubles matches against Houghton, St. Vincent and Bloomsburg. In singles play, Laplante had his best stretch of the year when he went 4-4 to start the spring slate, including winning consecutive matches against District Columbia (March 26) and Shenandoah (March 30).

Laplante is the first tennis player to earn Male Newcomer of the Year honors since the award's inception following the 2016-17 season. Since then, the award has been given to basketball student-athletes Jeff Redband (2017) and Sean Fasoyiro (2021), soccer player Noah Keem (2018) and volleyball standouts Jahari Winkfield (2019) and Zach Yerington (2020).

Additional nominees for the 2021-22 Male Newcomer of the Year were basketball player Nick MacDonald (Amherst, N.Y.) and cross country runner Connor O'Brien (Hamburg, N.Y.).

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.

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