Men’s golf poised for NSIC championship run
As it nears the end of the 2025-2026 men’s golf season, the team is preparing for the final and most important tournament: the NSIC Conference Championship.
The championship will take place at Paradise Pointe golf course in Smithville, Missouri, this weekend, April 17–19.
“We’ve had a pretty solid year,” head coach Mike Krsnak said. “The whole point is to get everyone to peak at the right time.”
With two tournament wins and five top-three finishes, Krsnak said their consistency has greatly improved from when he first started coaching the team four years ago. He said much of this is thanks to the younger, newly recruited players and how tight-knit the team has become.
“They kind of know what everybody's made of by now,” Krsnak said.
With a team of 11 men but only five or six who consistently compete, there’s opportunity for disagreement within the group dynamic. However, senior Blake Northagen believes that their internal competition helps the team improve as a group because the athletes sharpen each other’s skills.
“Creating a healthy type of competition within the team is important,” Northagen said.
The athletes competing are as follows: freshman Derek Andersen, sophomores Kaiden Brovold, Keeton Newborg, Henry Hartquist, and senior Jacob Stewart.
After beating higher-ranked teams like Concordia-St. Paul and the University of Minnesota Crookston at the NSIC Preview Invitational on March 23–24, the team is operating with high expectations for this tournament.
“I feel like we’re kind of a dark horse,” said sophomore Kaiden Brovold. “We have yet to even witness our peak.”
Krsnak said sophomore Henry Hartquist is easily the player to watch this weekend.
“He's been pretty much a rock star at every event this year,” Krsnak said.
Senior Jacob Stewart and freshman Derek Andersen have also demonstrated strong, consistent play this season. Stewart is a former all-conference player with a tournament win from this season, and Andersen has won two tournaments this season in his first year on the team.
The team believes that winning the championship would be the highest mark of success. According to Krsnak, the top team the Vikings will face is Winona State, which is ranked top 30 in the nation.
“Winona's a really good team,” Brovold said. “I think if we can give them a run for their money this year it would be a really beneficial thing for us.”
After years of building the program through recruiting talented younger players and establishing a strong team culture, the men’s golf team has asserted a strong position to compete with the top teams in the conference.
“Being able to see that the program is heading in the right direction is really cool,” Northagen said.
