MILWAUKEE, Wis. (naccsports.org) --- Aurora University senior Ellie Knight has been named the 2024-2025 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) Women's Golf Athlete of the Year, as selected by a vote of the league's head women's golf coaches.

Knight is the third Aurora women's golfer to be named NACC Women's Golf Athlete of the Year, accounting for six of the last seven honors and eight in total all-time. Kristen Richardson captured the 2007 honor, while Kallie Sakamoto won four times in a five-year stretch (2018, 2020-22).

Knight finished in a virtual tie with Marian's Yinan Lu for the league's best scoring average, averaging 78.5 strokes over 24 rounds - shaving 1.4 strokes off her league-leading scoring average from a year ago. During the course of the season, she posted eight of the league's top-20 18-hole scores and carded a total of 16 rounds of 80 or better. Knight's top round of the year came in the Benedictine Fall Invitational where she fired a NACC season-best-tying even-par-71. 

Knight posted eight top-10 and six top-five finishes in 13 events as the Spartans competed in a number of large-field tournaments against some of the best teams in the Midwest. Of Aurora's 13 events, seven - including the NCAA Championships - featured at least 14 teams. She captured medalist honors on four separate occasions, including at the 2024 NACC Women's Golf Championships where she posted a 10-over 223 total to win by eight strokes. Additionally, Knight won the Benedictine Fall Invitational, the Joliet Junior College Clash at the Creek, and the Benedictine Spring Invitational, while also posting top-10 finishes at the North Central Cardinal Classic (tie, fourth), Midwest Region Fall Classic (tie, fifth), UW-Whitewater Spring Invitational (sixth), and the Illinois Wesleyan Kathy Niepagen Spring Fling (tie, eighth).

Knight also helped lead the Spartans to the first sub-300 round posted by a NACC program when Aurora fired a 10-over 298 at the Illinois Wesleyan Fall Classic in September. Aurora also twice broke the NACC Championship 18-hole scoring record, firing a 307 in round one to erase the year-old record of 313 set in 2024, then following it up with a final-round 306 two days later to round out the 54-hole championship.

In May, Knight was named all-region by the Women's Golf Coaches Association (WGCA), a first for an Aurora women's golf student-athlete.