NAIT’s golf team finished their second regular season at the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Championships on September 24 with four medals, and six golfers qualified for the Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA) National Championships in Toronto.
The program has shined in its sophomore year. The blue and gold men’s and women’s teams were in the CCAA’s national top 10 rankings entering the ACAC Championship weekend.
Head Coach Tyler Leicht discussed expectations at the beginning of the season, mentioning that the program was ready to take the next step and “start chasing for that silver and gold” while fighting for another podium finish at championship weekend.
And NAIT did all that and more. Ella Dolan took home bronze in the individual women’s standings, and the men’s, women’s, and mixed teams finished with silver medals—an improvement over the men’s team’s sole bronze medal in 2023/2024.
“It’s awesome, to tell you the truth,” Leicht said in an interview with the Nugget. “It pays tribute to all the work that the members of the team, as well as my coaching staff, put in to try and be successful. And to not be a one and done [at nationals].”
“We had one medal last year, which was men’s bronze, and then this year, to take home three silvers and a bronze is quite the accomplishment for a program in its second year.”
The top five on the men’s side—Tanner Visser, Mason Gorski, Cayden Clark, Brophy Dunne, and Blake Feth—will represent NAIT on the national stage, while Ella Dolan will form an ACAC team with Ella Gifford and Laura Psutka, who finished first and second at the championships.
The men’s team finished 10th out of 11 at nationals last season and will look to improve their results this time, with Gorski and Visser—the team’s top-performing golfers—leading the way for a second year.
On the other side, the 2023 ACAC women’s team, featuring NAIT’s Michelle Kibblewhite, finished last out of six teams.
The outcome this time around with Dolan, Gifford and Psutka should land NAIT its first national podium since the program’s revival.
“On the men’s side, we set a goal to try and come in … at 303 hundred strokes every day, which is about a 75 average, on this [nationals] golf course, that is going to put us at about 12 over every day,” Leicht explained. “If we can do that, we’re in a good spot and should be in the top half of the field.”
“[On the women’s side] we’re going to see. We have some veterans in Ella Gifford and Lauren Posuka from Concordia; they’ve been here before. It’s Ella’s [Dolan] first time [at nationals], but she’s shown she can stick right with those ladies. And I think this is a good year for those ladies to go and have a really good showing.”
The Ooks will travel to Toronto for the CCAA Golf Championships early next month. The final tournament of the blue and gold’s second season will start on October 14 and end October 18.
Cover photo via X @ACAC_Sport
