AMHERST, N.Y. -- The Daemen University women's cross country team was picked fourth in the 2026 East Coast Conference Preseason Coaches Poll, the conference released on Wednesday.

The 11-time defending ECC champions Roberts Wesleyan University Redhawks sit atop the preseason poll, finishing with all eight first-place votes and garnering 64 points as a team. Molloy University (54 points) and D'Youville University (47 points) are the conference's top three teams in the preseason poll. The Wildcats collected 42 points to place fourth in the preseason poll. St. Thomas Aquinas College (26), Queens College (25), the College of Staten Island (21) and the University of the District of Columbia (9) round out the rest of the ECC.

Daemen placed fourth out of eight teams at the 2025 ECC Championships on Long Island, running in the program's 13th ECC Championship and continuing the streak of never finishing worse than fourth as a team. After graduating four, including three of the top runners from the 2025 campaign, the Daemen women will look to find a new Wildcat to pace the team after losing Patsy Oberholzer and Christa Oates to graduation. Rising juniors Lia Brasacchio (Victor, N.Y.) and Kylie Piekarski (Lancaster, N.Y.) put together solid sophomore campaigns. Daemen's top returning runner from last season, Brasacchio finished as the second-place runner in two meets last year and the third-place runner four times while setting two PR's in 2025. Piekarski placed fourth among the Wildcats three times, third once and fifth twice in 2025. 2025 newcomers Raegan Giardini (West Clarksville, N.Y.) and Teagan Jones (Lawrenceville, Pa.) look to improve upon their rookie campaigns this upcoming season. Head coach Pete Gratien brought two new runners to the 2026 squad, adding graduate student Alexis Nguyen (Grand Island, N.Y.) who spent the last four seasons running track for the Wildcats but spent every fall as a member of the Daemen women's soccer team, and incoming freshman Julie Cruz (Amherst, N.Y.). 

The Wildcats will run in six meets during the 2026 campaign, beginning with the Doug Watts Open on Saturday, Sept. 5 in Edinboro, Pa. The 2026 ECC Championships will be held in Rochester, N.Y. hosted by Roberts Wesleyan on Saturday, Nov. 7.