This article was originally published in our October issue. Read it here.
The Ooks golf team finished their conference season in September at the 2025 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Golf Championships, and both the men’s and women’s teams won medals.
The men’s team won silver for the second consecutive year after finishing the tournament with a team score of +41. Mason Gorski led the team with an overall score of +1 and finished third in the conference to earn himself an individual bronze medal. Cayden Clark finished second on the team and fifth in the conference with +2, followed by Donovan Caldwell’s score of +15, Nate Kasowski’s score of +23 and Brophy Dunne’s score of +31.
Gorski was also named to the ACAC Men’s All-Conference team for his play this season. The third-year golfer finished third in Regional #1 earlier in September and helped the men’s team earn their only first-place tournament finish since the program’s revival.
The women’s team finished in third place, earning a bronze medal. Ava Radke finished ninth out of 18 golfers.
The Ooks’ Lexi Gedny finished second on the team with +77, Jada Lee finished third with +79 and Jocelyn Avis finished fourth with +80.
The teams’ Head Coach, Tyler Leicht, described the championships as “very impressive” for NAIT and expressed he is “very proud” of his team’s performance this season.
“Our goal every year is to try and qualify for nationals, to take our men’s team and take a couple ladies,” Leicht said in an interview with the Nugget. “We’re very happy, very fortunate and really proud of the team for what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
Leicht, in his third year leading the program, was also named the 2025 ACAC Golf Coach of the Year.
“My perspective on those things is that it’s a reflection of the team and the staff and the people that are around me,” Leicht shared. “I don’t really see it as an individual award, I kind of see it as a team award and just kind of the culture we’ve built.”
The men’s team, along with Radke, will now head to the national championships in October.
At nationals last year in Toronto, the Ooks men’s team finished ninth out of 10 teams for the second consecutive year, and the women’s team finished fourth, just missing the podium. This time around, Leicht has high hopes that the Ooks can improve on last year’s performance.
“It’s a golf course we went to in our first year [at nationals] in 2023 … but yeah, we’re excited. We’re looking forward to it,” he explained. “We haven’t finished within the top five on the men’s side. So we’re hoping to improve on our last two years and then see where it can take us.”
The 2025 nationals are hosted in Medicine Hat and will take place from Oct. 13 to Oct. 17.
Featured image via ACAC
