AMHERST, N.Y. -- The Daemen University men's cross country team has been picked to finish third in the
East Coast Conference Men's Cross Country Preseason Coaches' Poll, which was announced this morning following a vote of the league's seven head coaches.
Daemen's No. 3 ranking comes after the Wildcats posted a program-best second place finish at the 2022 ECC Championships. It is tied for the highest preseason ranking in program history since the Wildcats joined the ECC in 2013. Daemen ranked third in the preseason poll in 2017, 2018 and 2022.
Roberts Wesleyan University, winners of the last eight conference titles, picked up six of the seven first-place votes and sits atop the preseason poll with 48 total points. The Redhawks have topped each of the last nine ECC preseason polls. Molloy College, which totaled one first-place vote, placed second in the poll with 40 points, narrowly edging out Daemen (35 points). St. Thomas Aquinas College (30), Queens (20), D'Youville University (13) and The College of Staten Island (10) round out the poll.
The Wildcats return 11 runners from last season's team that finished with four second-place finishes on the year, losing just one runner to graduation. Seniors
Jon Moote (Wilson, N.Y.),
Connor O'Brien (Hamburg, N.Y.),
Phil Ceccarelli (Hamburg, N.Y.) and sophomore
Aidan Kincaid (Orchard Park, N.Y.) top the list of returning runners. Moote was named the 2023 ECC Preseason Runner of the Year. A three-time ECC Runner of the Week in 2022, he led the Wildcats in all seven races last season with four top-four finishes including two first-place finishes. Moote earned First Team All-East Coast Conference honors, posted two personal records and set a school record with Daemen's fastest 8K with a time of 25:30.1 while racing to a first-place finish at the Highlander Invitational, breaking
Kevin Roginson's 2016 school record (25:31.6) set at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational. The rising senior finished sixth overall at the ECC Championships and placed 34th at the NCAA Division II East Region Championship, and moved to fourth all-time in Daemen's 10K record books when he posted a 33:35.7 time at the 2022 NCAA Division II East Regionals where he placed 34th overall. O'Brien, who placed second among all Daemen runners in five of the seven meets last season, picked up his second straight Second Team All-ECC honors with a ninth-place finish with a time of 27:32.4 at the ECC Championships. He set a PR 10K time of 34:19.2 when he placed 57th out of 146 runners at the II East Regionals, moving into 6th all-time in the Daemen 10K record books with that time. Ceccarelli posted three top-10 finishes in 2022, and was one of Daemen's top three runners in four races. He earned Second Team All-ECC honors with a 12th place finish at the ECC Championships, and set a PR 10K time at the East Region Championships. Kincaid was the first ever Daemen runner to earn ECC Rookie of the Year as the first freshman to cross the finish line at the ECC Championships with his 14th place finish which solidified him Second Team All-ECC honors. In his freshman season, Kincaid was one of Daemen's top five runners in five races, set personal records in five races on the year, and was named ECC Rookie of the Week for a program-record four times over the course of the season.
Daemen opens up the 2023 season on Sept. 2 when they travel to Syracuse for the Frank Dillon Memorial Invitational hosted by Le Moyne College. Four additional regular season meets follow, including the Daemen Alumni Invitational (Sept. 16) at Williamsville's Bassett Park. Roberts Wesleyan hosts the ECC Championships on Oct. 21, and the NCAA Division II East Region Championships will take place in Hopkinton, N.H. on Nov. 4.
2023 ECC Men's Cross Country Preseason Poll
1. Roberts Wesleyan (6) - 48
2. Molloy (1) - 40
3. DAEMEN - 35
4. St. Thomas Aquinas - 30
5. Queens - 20
6. D'Youville - 13
7. Staten Island - 10
( ) denotes first place votes
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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