MANHATTAN, Kan. – Playing in its first postseason in eight years, the Kansas State women’s golf team is set to begin its quest for the first NCAA Championship appearance in program history next Monday through Wednesday as the Wildcats compete in the 2025 NCAA Lexington Regional at the par-72, 6,322-yard Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
 

K-State, which is the No. 5 seed for the regional, is one of 12 squads vying for a spot in the 2025 NCAA Championship as the top five teams and top individual not on an advancing team will move on to the championship, May 16-21, at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
 
“Our season starts Monday,” head coach Stew Burke said. “The ladies have played a lot of great golf throughout the semester to get us in this position. However, it is now top five or go home, and I don’t think anybody on this roster is ready for the season to end. Ultimately, we will continue to focus on each round at a time and see where three good rounds leave us at the end of the tournament. I can promise you that these ladies are ready to take the leap to the next level.”
 
The top four seeds in the NCAA Lexington Regional are No.1 Florida State – the ACC Champion – No. 2 USC, No. 3 TCU and No. 4 Vanderbilt. Other teams competing consist of Georgia Southern, Pepperdine, Louisville, Miami, Conference USA Champion Western Kentucky, Ohio Valley Champion Morehead State and Northeast Champion Fairleigh Dickinson.
 
The Wildcats will use the same lineup as the Big 12 Championship in seniors Carla Bernat and Sophie Bert, freshman Nanami Nakashima, sophomore Alenka Navarro and junior Noa van Beek. Sophomore Julia Ballester Barrio will serve as the alternate.
 
“This will be a new experience for the majority of the team, but it’s great to have Carla and Sophie who have had some postseason experience,” Burke said. “Keene Trace is a great golf course with many similarities to our home at Colbert Hills.”
 
Bernat enters the postseason after being selected as the 2025 Big 12 Women’s Golfer of the Year and was joined on the All-Big 12 Team by Bert. A native of Castellon, Spain, Bernat is the second player in program history to earn the conference’s top honor (Christine Boucher – 2003-04), while it was the first time ever the Wildcats had two All-Big 12 golfers in the same season.
 
The 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Champion, Bernat currently owns the school’s single-season (70.09) and career (70.40) scoring average records. She enters the regional ranked 23rd in the National Collegiate Golf Rankings thanks to seven top-five finishes and a pair of victories, while she never finished outside the top 20 in any of her 11 appearances this season.
 
Bert won the 2025 Big 12 Championship to become the first Wildcat to ever to claim an individual conference championship, while she was also named the Big 12 Women’s Golfer of the Month for May. A transfer from East Tennessee State, Bert’s 72.75 scoring average this season ranks third in school history, while she also set (63) and tied (204) Kansas State’s single round and 54-hole scoring records, respectively.
 
Both Bernat and Bert enter the NCAA Lexington Regional with postseason experience under their belts. This will be Bernat’s fourth NCAA Regional after tying for 10th at the 2022 NCAA Stillwater Regional, 27th in the 2023 NCAA Athens Regional and third in the 2024 NCAA Bryan (Texas) Regional, the latter of which allowed her to advance to the NCAA Championship. Bert tied for 13th at last year’s NCAA Auburn Regional as part of ETSU’s Southern Conference Champion squad.
 
A native of Kani, Japan, Nakashima has competed in all 11 events this season and ranks third on the team with a 73.84 scoring average, and her best finish this season was a second-place showing at the Powercat Invitational.
 
Navarro has the fourth-best scoring average on the team at 74.03, just ahead of van Beek’s mark of 74.16. Those two players have combined for six top-20 finishes, and both have notched a top-10 showing this season. Navarro’s appearance in the top 10 was a tie for third place at the Powercat Invitational, while van Beek tied for seventh at the MountainView Collegiate.
 
Kansas State begins play at the 2025 NCAA Lexington Regional off the 10th tee on Monday morning starting at 8 a.m. (ET), as the Wildcats are paired with Vanderbilt and Georgia Southern. Live results can be followed on SCOREBOARD powered by Clippd.

 

Less than 24 hours after meeting with Nick Saban at the University of Alabama, President Donald Trump is considering an executive order to “increase scrutiny” around name, image, and likeness, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump was in Tuscaloosa on Thursday night to give the commencement speech to graduating students at the University of Alabama. After the commencement, Trump met with former Alabama head coach Nick Saban and Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville to discuss NIL in college athletics.

Read More: Saban Shares Funny Trump Story from Tide’s White House Visit

Nick Shultz of On3 Sports wrote that Saban expressed concern about the amount of NIL money added to the college sports landscape. Saban thought it was damaging college athletics, and Trump agreed, saying he would consider drafting an order and telling his aides to start studying what it could look like.

The Wall Street Journal said Saban’s point was about NIL reform and creating an even playing field. It echoes the sentiment he made publicly about the need for competitive balance.

Saban has been a mouthpiece advocating for change in the NIL sphere. With the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, structure will be key to preventing any more major blows to college sports.

Read More: Trump, Saban Address UA Seniors at Coleman Coliseum

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men’s basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – It’s Saturday night at 8:38 p.m. on April 19, 2025. Chants of ‘Go Blue’ echo through the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. at the NCAA men’s gymnastics championships as the host team trails Stanford by 0.537 heading into the sixth and final rotation.
 
Fifth year Buckeye Kameron Nelson steps onto the vault runway to lead off the rotation with his last collegiate event as an individual – an event that took his entire career to perfect but will be over in about six seconds. Manifestation. He salutes the judges and takes a breath, feeling the energy of the Block O and the captain’s patch on his chest while calming his heart and his mind. Present. Practice. He takes off down the runway, getting as much power as he can before doing a front handspring onto the vault. Time slows and Buckeye Nation holds its breath as Nelson twists through the air. He opens up and sticks the dismount as the crowd roars with approval – but will it be enough?
 
“I stuck my vault and I knew [the score] was going to be good but wasn’t sure until it came up. Once it did, I went crazy,” Nelson said. “I went up to all my teammates. I ran up into the stands to my girlfriend and I was super happy. We still had to wait for Michigan to vault and they went and stuck two vaults, which was probably the most nerve-wracking part of the whole meet for me. Even though their starts are a little bit harder, a perfect vault could still potentially get up to that score.”
 
Five vaults stood between Nelson’s 14.633 and Ohio State’s first NCAA vault champion since Pejman Ebrahimi took the crown in 2007. It had been six years since the Buckeyes’ most recent NCAA champion when Alec Yoder won pommel horse in 2019. Two of the five vaults following Nelson’s were also stuck as the stars shined the brightest on the biggest stage. Was he meant to be an NCAA champion?
 
“My theme in college has been manifestation,” Nelson explained. “I’m going to get it tattooed and it’s also going to be engraved into one of my rings. It’s about believing something so much that it becomes more of a reality – even before it is one, that’s your reality. I believed so many things coming into college that I really enjoy something that I’m passionate about. I manifested it so much that it became easier to me than if I were to just go along with it just because. Obsession and manifestation for me are two big things I like to focus on because it makes the entire process more fun. It makes the reality easier.”

The manifestation worked as Nelson’s 14.633 held for the highest score in the competition and brought a gold trophy back to Columbus. He beat the runner-up, Asher Hong, by 0.067 – the same margin by which Hong had bested Nelson in the floor competition earlier in the evening. Nelson is known for his strength on floor, making history this season as the first gymnast in the world to compete two triple backs in a single floor routine in January. He made floor his main focus this year and got it down to a science, but after falling just short in the NCAA Championships, he had to immediately move on – and he did, sticking his vault approximately one hour after finishing his floor routine.

“Coming to Ohio State, that was my main goal,” Nelson stated. “I wanted to be one of the national champions. I wanted to be put up on the wall. That’s what I thought being an Ohio State Buckeye was – to leave your mark. It speaks to what I’ve done and those people before. They were my inspiration and the people I always followed and looked up to. I’m glad I could join them.”

In a tightly knit men’s gymnastics community, gymnastics means the world to Nelson. This sport has made him who he is. He’s an extremely hard worker – determined to improve and disciplined enough to make that happen. He’s someone who learned every different style of vault to pick the one that fits him best. He’s someone who looks up to the freshmen as a fifth year and team captain because they helped keep him in a mindset to push harder and continue to get better.

“This was the only sport that really stuck with me,” Nelson said. “I tried other sports, but I really needed this one. If I didn’t have Ohio State and I didn’t have this sport here, I don’t know what kind of person I would be. I’d be completely different but hopefully showing the hard work and the success that can come out of it – hopefully that turns an eye and shows the importance of this sport.”

While the Buckeyes didn’t qualify as a team for this year’s team finals, Nelson qualified as an individual on all three of the events he competed in during the qualifying session – floor, rings and vault. From arriving at Ohio State as a freshman and changing his vault from style to style to find his fit, the coaches and community at Ohio State helped Nelson stay the course and manifest an NCAA title to his name, cementing his legacy as one of the all-time greats in Ohio State men’s gymnastics history.

“It’s something I always felt I was capable of and I never really doubted that I’d be able to do something like this,” Nelson said. “It was more of the outside perspective thought that going to Ohio State wouldn’t allow me to do something like this. People thought other schools were better and while we didn’t make the team finals this year, I feel like this school was the only option for me that could really get me to where I wanted to go. The bond with my coaches is what set me up the most so that when the time came to do it, I felt the most confident to go out there and do what I was meant to do. I said before I even went into the vault that this was meant to be. Before even coming to Ohio State, I wanted to be put up on the wall, which is what happens if you’re a national champion. I felt that this is what was meant to be and so it wasn’t really a surprise to me. I just went out and did my best and that’s how it happened.”

As Nelson’s collegiate career comes to a close and another door opens, hopefully his story of manifestation and determination can help inspire the next generation of gymnasts that they can accomplish what they set out to achieve and leave a legacy that is uniquely their own.

“It’s hit me that my dreams came true.” – Ohio State alumnus and 2025 NCAA vault champion, Kameron Nelson

 

#GoBucks

Parkway West junior Leyton Usry is an athlete for all seasons.

Now, it’s lacrosse time for the Longhorn attackman.

Lacrosse is not the only sport the 6-foot-1, 170-pound Usry competes in. He is a multi-sport standout. He also plays hockey and football.

Last winter, he was a defenseman for the Longhorns, who won the Wickenheiser Cup. Last fall, he joined the Parkway West football team for the first time and set four school records.

“I love playing year-round at West because I get to build relationships with everyone in the building,” Usry said. “No matter where I go, I know I have a great friend around the corner.”

This spring, he’s helping the Longhorns to a 9-1 start. He leads the team with 34 goals and 14 assists.

“As a lacrosse player, I always stay calm, I am always willing to get my teammates involved and make sure we are the best team we can be,” Usry said. “I had no personal stats or records I am reaching for this season. I just want to make everyone around me better and enjoy playing. So far, I think I’ve done all right.”

Parkway West coach Pete Stirling likes what he sees from Usry this season.

“What really sets him apart in lacrosse is that he can play at a very high level with both hands,” Stirling said. “Most lacrosse players are good with their dominant hand and bad with their off hand, which limits their effectiveness to only half of the field, while Leyton has the whole field available to him with a strong left and right hand.”

While he shows how skilled he is as an attackman, Stirling believes Usry may be better suited for another position at the next level.

“Leyton is a more natural midfielder with his speed and stick handling abilities and that is likely what he would play in college if he chooses to play lacrosse in college,” Stirling said. “ He is very skilled at attack, but his attributes suit midfield better.”

Usry is a relative newcomer to lacrosse.

“I’ve been playing lacrosse since the end of elementary school,” Usry said. “I love how the game can be fast-paced but also slowed down at times when needed.”

In his first season with the Longhorns, Usry led the team with 39 goals and 26 assists.

“I was very aware of Leyton as he had a brother (Spencer) who is two years older than him and was our best player,” Stirling said. “He played for our middle school team along with playing for some select teams. He would have been one of the best players on the high school team as an eighth grader if he was allowed to play up.

“He could have scored more but Usry missed a few games at the beginning of the season due to scheduling conflicts with hockey. I thought that he would have a big game in his first full game because nobody knew about him and sure enough he scored six goals against Wentzville Holt and has been a known commodity for our opponents ever since.”

Ursy enjoyed playing with his brother.

“My freshman year I remember playing with my older brother, Spencer, who was a great leader,” Usry said. “We would always have fun, and it helped build my love for the sport.”

Spencer currently is playing lacrosse at Hope College in Michigan.

As a sophomore, Usry led the area with 60 goals and 30 assists and was named to the all-state team. He credits working hard to improve with his increased production.

“(In my) sophomore year, I got to learn from my mistakes and challenges of the year before and got to work on them in the off-season,’ Usry said. “It also helped that everyone around me was then a senior and was playing the best lacrosse they could be.”

The overall team had gotten better that year, Stirling said.

“His supporting cast improved greatly last season including the defense and faceoff specialist, which allowed the offense to get a lot more opportunities compared to his freshman season,” Stirling said. “His offensive cohorts were vastly improved as well and you don’t get 30 assists without some teammates that can score.”

Usry’s role has changed somewhat this season. 

“He has taken a more selfless role this season by playing more midfield for us, which means a lot more time on the defensive half of the field,” Stirling said. “Offensively, he is the guy that gets our offense started, which will usually result in a second assist or a hockey assist which isn’t a recorded stat in lacrosse.  His stats might be a little down from where they were last year, but he is having a bigger impact on games this season.”

 The Longhorns can make noise in the postseason, Usry said.

“Our lacrosse team can have a very special season,” Usry said. “I know we can go far and make a good run into the playoffs. As soon as we tune some things up, we will be a phenomenal squad.”

Stirling has seen Usry play in his other sports.

“One of my favorite pastimes is watching my players play their other sports, so I did see most of his football games and a lot of hockey games including all of the Wickenheiser Cup playoff games,” Stirling said. “I see the smooth fluid athlete that seems like it could translate to any sport. He has a great combination of speed, quickness and physicality that stands out even amongst other high-level athletes on a football field.”

Usry began his junior year at Parkway West by joining coach Jeff Duncan’s football team.

Usry played well and earned some accolades. He was voted all-conference and all-district as a wide receiver.

As a receiver, he set the record for most receiving yards (952) in a season, receiving touchdowns (12) in a season, receptions (13) in a game, and receptions (82) in a season.

“It feels good to be in the history of West football especially with the prior talent we have had at the school,” Usry said. “I was super glad I came out and played football this past season. I had no real expectations for me going into the season, but as soon as things got rolling, I knew I could be great.”

Duncan was glad he joined his program.

“Leyton was fantastic. He got better each week and was a very reliable and dynamic player for our team,” Duncan said. “We knew that he was talented but as we started the season did not expect that kind of production. He got better each week and as the season went on, we knew that he was special.”

Usry recently played for West’s Wickenheiser Cup-winning ice hockey team and in the fall set four program receiving records in his first season playing football for the Longhorns.

He has been playing hockey for a long time.

“I’ve been playing ever since I was a little kid,” Usry said. “I played for the AAA Blues for the past five years before quitting to play football. I love how physical it is and how unique it is compared to other sports.”

Usry predominantly played defense for coach Brian Waddell. He occasionally played forward.

“Leyton solidified our depth and defense when he was able to play following his West football season,” Waddell said. “With Leyton‘s background in several sports that all require a high level of physical play, that is one of his best skills. He has never been afraid of the physical side of hockey. Playing football, lacrosse and hockey all require a physical skill set to be successful.”

Being on the championship team is something Usry will never forget. 

“Winning the Wickenheiser Cup was a highlight of my high school career because of the excitement and joy it brought to the school,” Usry said. “I have so much fun playing in front of all my friends and family and making them proud.”

Playing several sports takes up time, Waddell noted.

“With the demands of each sport, Leyton needs time to get his school work done as well as rest and recover,” Waddell said. “But that being said, each of his high school coaches are happier when the conflicts allow him to participate in each team sport’s games and practice.”

Football is his favorite sport now, Usry said.

Stirling believes he will have options to play a sport in college.

“I think lacrosse is his best sport simply due to the numbers game,” Stirling said. “There are just fewer highly skilled, athletic, physical players in lacrosse compared to football and hockey, so he is able to stand out a little more in the lacrosse world.

“He is being recruited for college lacrosse and he could definitely play at the Division 1 college level, but he has fallen in love with football and is interested in seeing what options might present themselves for college football at some spring and summer camps and showcases.”

His coaches all like and enjoy having Usry around their sport.

“He is a very quiet, funny, nice young man that does well in school away from the sport,” Stirling said.

“Leyton is not only a great athlete but also a really good student,” Duncan said. “He excels in school and continues to try and make everyone around him better.”