AMHERST, N.Y. -- The Daemen University women's tennis team was selected fourth in the 2025-26 East Coast Conference Women's Tennis Preseason Poll, released on Monday following a vote of the league's five head coaches.
Women's tennis powerhouse Queens College received four first-place votes and topped the poll with 22 points after taking home the 2024 ECC Championship title. St. Thomas Aquinas College collected one first-place vote and finished second in the poll with 19 points. University of the District of Columbia is third with 18 points, while Daemen and D'Youville University sit tied for fourth with eight points a piece.
Daemen returns five players from last season's team that went 10-9 overall and finished fourth in the ECC in the 2024-25 season. The Wildcats graduated their top three singles players from a season ago in all-conference player
Frida Rubio,
Kitsa Scime, who finished second in Daemen's record books for singles victories, and Yinnett Del Leon, who totaled 26 singles victories over her four-year Daemen career. The Wildcats added three newcomers to the 2025-26 squad,
Marley Conover (San Luis Obispo, Cali.),
Nadja Emmendorfer (Clarence, N.Y.) and
Bayisenge Marie-Claire (Syracuse, N.Y.) to bring the team to eight members for the upcoming season.
The 2025-26 season will be a different format for the conference, with the ECC Championships moving to the spring. The Wildcats will still play conference matches in the fall, hosting STAC (Sept. 19), Queens (Sept. 20) and D'Youville (Oct. 3) at Daemen's brand new Royal Park courts this fall as well as traveling to the nation's capital to play at UDC (Oct. 17). League play will resume in the spring with four additional conference match ups. The Wildcats are set to play 11 matches in the fall portion of the season, hosting five home matches at their new courts including their home debut against Nazareth on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 3 PM.
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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