ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - The CCAA announced its men's golf all-conference team and individual award winners for the 2025-26 season.
 
Chico State earned three of the four individual awards and placed four student-athletes on the All-CCAA team. Naoki Easterday was named 2025-26 CCAA Golfer of the Year, and Vineet Vallamsetty earned Freshman of the Year honors. Their coach, Nick Green, was voted the CCAA Coach of the Year. Newcomer of the Year honors went to Cal State San Bernardino's Marco Lin.
 
Naoki Easterday was the No. 1-ranked golfer in the NCAA West Region. He averaged 71.0 strokes over 30 rounds, and he finished in the top 5 in six of 10 tournaments. Easterday earned tournament wins at the Wildcat Classic (-13) and at the Palm Valley Classic (-12). Only once did he finish a tournament with a score over par while leading Chico State to four tournament wins, including their final three tournaments of the season. Easterday is the first Chico State student-athlete to win Golfer of the Year since Kelley Sullivan in 2019.
 
Marco Lin joined Cal State San Bernardino out of South Dakota State and made an immediate impact on the Coyotes. The junior from Taoyuan, Taiwan, played in nine tournaments and posted an adjusted scoring average of 73.1 over 26 rounds. He had four top 10 finishes, including placing fourth at both the CSU San Marcos Fujikura Invitational and the Coyote Classic. Lin is the first Coyote ever to be named CCAA Newcomer of the Year.
 
Vineet Vallamsetty earned two tournament wins while carrying a 73.0 scoring average as a freshman. He climbed to No. 15 as an individual in the West Region rankings after winning the Hanny Stanislaus Invitational with a 5-under par. He played in nine of Chico State's 10 tournaments, and the team's lowest finish came without Vallmsetty in the lineup. He is the first Wildcat to win CCAA Freshman of the Year honors since Matt Hutchins in 2016.
 
Nick Green claimed his third CCAA Coach of the Year award, and first since 2019. The eighth-year coach guided Chico State to four tournament wins, including the 2026 CCAA Championship by overcoming CSUSB on the third playoff hole. The Wildcats are the No. 1-ranked team in the region, according to Scoreboard, powered by Clippd, with an adjusted scoring average of 288.8. Chico recently earned the No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA West Regional as the CCAA's automatic bid.
 
Giuseppe Aliotti and Ty Weaver joined their teammates Easterday and Vallamsetty as All-CCAA selections.
 
Cal State San Bernardino and Cal State East Bay also had multiple student-athletes collect All-CCAA honors. Kamron Hopson and Tyler Price represented CSUSB. Seniors Easton Hether and Peyton Hendricks received the honor for the Pioneers. It was the fourth career All-CCAA honor for Hether. He earned an honorable mention selection as a freshman and first-team honors each of the next three years.
 
The remaining two All-CCAA honors went to Cal State San Marcos' Gavin McCormick and Cal State Monterey Bay's George Goff.
 
The CCAA will send five teams to the NCAA West/South Central Regional back at The Reserve at Spanos Park on May 7-9. They will compete for the opportunity to advance to the NCAA Championships in Boulder City, Nev., on May 18-22.
 

All-CCAA Team
Name	Yr.	School	Hometown
Giuseppe Aliotti	Sr.	Chico State	Clovis
Naoki Easterday - *^	Sr.	Chico State	Portland, Ore.
George Goff	Jr.	Cal State Monterey Bay	Orlando, Fla.
Peyton Hendricks	Sr.	Cal State East Bay	Livermore
Easton Hether - **^	Sr.	Cal State East Bay	Fairfield
Kamron Hopson	Jr.	Cal State San Bernardino	Redlands
Gavin McCormick	Jr.	Cal State San Marcos	Thousand Oaks
Tyler Price	So.	Cal State San Bernardino	Yucaipa
Vineet Vallamsetty	Fr.	Chico State	Newbury Park
Ty Weaver	Fr.	Chico State	Bakersfield
Honorable Mention
Oscar Blomqvist (CSUEB); Marco Lin (CSUSB); Aaron Parayno (CSUSB); Liam Weaver (CSUSM).
* - previous All-CCAA first team selection; ^ - previous honorable mention selection