Seven MAC Honors for Kent State Women’s Golf
5/1/2026 1:00:00 PM | Women's Golf
Five All-MAC Selections, Plus Golfer of the Year and Coach of the Year
KENT, Ohio - Five Kent State Dr. Paula Treckel women's golfers earned All-Mid-American Conference (MAC) honors, junior Veronika Kedronová repeated as MAC Golfer of the Year, and head coach Casey VanDamme was named MAC Coach of the Year for the fourth time in five seasons, the conference announced Wednesday. The seven combined honors come on the heels of Kent State's 27th consecutive MAC Championship - a 9-under team performance at Firestone Country Club's Fazio Course in which all five Golden Flashes finished inside the top 10.
Kedronová and senior Leon Takagi were named First Team All-MAC. Sophomores Gracie Larsen, Petra Babicová, and Isabella Goyette earned Second Team selections. With Kedronová's selection, a Kent State golfer has now been named MAC Golfer of the Year in 26 of the 27 seasons the conference has given the award.
Kedronová, a junior from Rožnov pod Radhoštem, Czech Republic, became the first Kent State golfer to win MAC Golfer of the Year in consecutive seasons since Pimnipa Panthong did it in 2017 and 2018 - and only the seventh Golden Flash ever to win it back-to-back. She has been First Team All-MAC every year of her career, was MAC Freshman of the Year in 2024, and added MAC Championship Medalist honors this spring with a three-round 67-69-67 = 203 (-7) at Firestone.
She rewrote the program record book along the way. Her four tournament victories - at the Canadian Collegiate, Landfall Tradition, Lady Luck Invitational, and MAC Championship - tied the Kent State single-season wins record set by only four players in program history (Jan Dowling 1999-2000, Martina Gillen 2001-02, Jennifer Ha 2013-14, Pimnipa Panthong 2017-18). Her seven career wins through three seasons ties Panthong for the all-time program record, with a senior year still to come. Kedronová also broke the program 54-hole tournament record - twice - shooting 203 at the Landfall Tradition (69-65-69, -13) and matching it at the MAC Championship, lower than the previous school mark of 204 set by Panthong in 2016-17. Her 65 at Landfall ties for the second-best 18-hole round in school history. She finished the regular season at 71.38 strokes per round across 29 starts, with nine rounds in the 60s, 18 rounds at par or better, and a top-10 finish in seven of her ten events.
Takagi closes her Kent State career as the program's 16th golfer to earn All-MAC honors for all four years - and the first since Michaela Finn in 2019. The senior from Tokyo, Japan, was Second Team as a freshman in 2023 and has been First Team in each of the past three seasons. She was named MAC Golfer of the Year in 2024 and is a two-time MAC Championship Medalist, winning the individual title outright in 2023 and sharing it with Hester Sicking in 2024. Takagi posted five top-5 finishes in 2025-26, including a T-4 at the MAC Championship. Her career-low 68 came twice this season - in Round 2 of the Wolverine Invitational and Round 1 of the MAC Championship - and she averaged 73.44 strokes across 32 rounds.
Larsen, a sophomore from Melbourne, Australia, follows up a 2025 MAC Freshman of the Year and First Team campaign with a Second Team selection and a runner-up finish at the MAC Championship, where her final-round 67 - a career low - lifted her to 2nd place at -2 (208). Goyette, a sophomore from Medina, Ohio, returns to the All-MAC ranks after a First Team nod in 2025; she finished 4th at the Therese Hession Buckeye Invitational, her highest individual finish of the season, and added top-10 results at the Canadian Collegiate, Blessings Collegiate, Lady Luck, and MAC Championship. Babicová, a sophomore from Ocová, Slovakia, earns her first All-MAC honor after a steady season highlighted by a T-9 at the MAC Championship.
VanDamme's fourth Coach of the Year honor places him second in program history. This honor ties him with Greg Robertson, who earned four over his six seasons leading the Golden Flashes, and trails Mike Morrow's 10 over a 14-year career. Beyond the conference crown, his 2025-26 squad posted two team wins on the season - at the Wolverine Invitational and the MAC Championship - and recorded five top-3 team finishes against a schedule that included nationally-ranked competition.
Every MAC Golfer of the Year since 2021 has come from the Kent State roster - Caley McGinty (2021), Emily Price (2022), Mayka Hoogeboom (2023), Takagi (2024), and Kedronová (2025, 2026). In all, a Kent State golfer has won the award in every year of MAC women's golf history except two: 1999 and 2020.
The Golden Flashes will open NCAA postseason play at the Chapel Hill Regional, May 11-13 at UNC Finley Golf Club in Chapel Hill, N.C. Kent State is one of 12 teams in the field competing for a spot in the NCAA Championships.
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