Mercyhurst University Athletics

Kersten Daneau joins the Mercyhurst coaching staff in 2024 as the Defensive Coordinator to help guide the Lakers through their first year of Division I competition. She comes from Southern New Hampshire University, where she has spent the past 3 years as an assistant coach working closely with the defensive and goalkeeping units. Daneau’s expertise in goalie training and defensive tactics helped her previous team achieve unprecedented success, including consecutive playoff appearances and multiple all-conference selections, along with multiple appearances in the Division II IWLCA Coaches Poll.  She also served as a head goalie coach for the New Hampshire Tomahawks Lacrosse Club from 2022-2024.

While at SNHU, Daneau helped develop 6 All-East Region selections, 9 All-conference selections, and 3 all-rookie selections. In addition to this, she mentored multiple student-athletes who earned conference defensive player of the week and goalkeeper of the week on multiple occasions, as well as an IWLCA national defensive player of the week in 2024.

Before her stint at SNHU, Daneau was a four-year letter winner at Guilford College from 2017-2021. She started 30 games which included two COVID-impacted seasons. In 2020, she led the Quakers to a program-best 5-0 start in what was projected to be one of the most successful seasons in recent history before the season was halted by the pandemic. During that season she finished with a .463 save percentage and ranked second in the conference in goals-against average (7.51), while also spending time in the NCAA leaderboards on that merit. In 2021 she finished third in the conference with 113 goals against, leading the Quakers to their first quarterfinal appearance since 2016.
 
Daneau graduated from Guilford in 2021 with high honors, double majoring in exercise science and health sciences. She was the recipient of the Outstanding Exercise and Sport Science Major/Sports Medicine Track Award and was named Guilford’s Most Outstanding Student-Athlete in 2021.