The Aberdeen Central girls’ tennis team may have lost its top three players to graduation, but the cupboard is far from empty for the Golden Eagles this season.

Central returns five players who have previous varsity experience and another nearly half dozen individuals who will be making a serious run at a varsity position.

“We lost our top three from last year. I’ve just been telling everyone, we should be fine,” said Central coach John Vogel. “That’s not something you normally say when you lose your top three – and they were a good three, too – but I think we’ll be OK.”

The Eagles return the bottom half of their singles lineup from a year ago in Livia Douglas, Laney Gonsor and Avery Tennant. Reese Comstock played number three doubles, and Julia Knie filled in at varsity singles on occasion.

Douglas and Comstock recently won a doubles title at the Hub City Open this summer.

“They were attacking and being very aggressive, and doing everything you wanted them to do,” Vogel said.

Knie and Tennant also had a solid Hub City Open as a double tandem.

“I like the style of play I got to see from both of those teams,” Vogel said.

Douglas and Gonsor are the senior leaders on the squad and have multiple years of varsity experience in both singles and doubles.

“They’re looking to end their high school career on a high note,” Vogel said.

Additional help will come from a group that includes Chloe Ladner, Addison O’Keefe, Riley O’Keefe, Mady Holman and Olivia Geier.

“We have a lot of challenge matches to play,” Vogel said. “It’s interesting. It’s going to be fun on how it shakes out.”

The Eagles start their season on Friday and there are still plenty of question marks. One thing that is not in doubt, however, is the quality of depth on this year’s team.

“We have a number of girls who, on any given day, could probably beat everyone else on the team,” Vogel said.

While Central has yet to have a full squad at practice so far in the first week, Vogel likes what he has seen out of his players.

“We have 19 girls at the high school level,” Vogel said, “and I would say a dozen of them are playing pretty good tennis this first 4 or 5 days.”

Part of the reason can be traced back to the summer months where the majority of the team members were either in league or played in multiple tournaments.

“We had a lot of girls play a lot of tennis and you can see it,” Vogel said. “There’s no easy matches in challenges matches anymore, because this team, everyone up and down, knows how to play.”

The Eagles face defending State A champion Rapid City Stevens and Spearfish in Pierre on Friday, before meeting Rapid City Central and Rapid City Christian on Saturday at the same event.

While Vogel said it has been an adjustment not having his top three players from last season at practice so far this season, he also looks around and sees plenty of familiar faces prepared to help carry the load this fall.

“It’s a totally different year,” Vogel said, “but it should still be a nice fun, quality year for tennis.”