The Aberdeen Roncalli boys’ golf team is looking to carry last season’s success into its 2023 campaign. The Cavaliers finished second at the Class A golf tournament last fall, and coach Jon Murdy said expectations are high at the beginning of every new season.

“Year in and year out we always have high expectations for ourselves, and that’s for our conference, in our region, and at state,” Murdy said. “We want to be very competitive in all three of those areas.”

The Cavaliers return all but two golfers from last year’s runner-up squad. Sawyer Henrich, who finished in a tie for 19th at the state meet, was the lone graduate from a year ago, while Harper Schnabel transferred. However, the team returns three other golfers who finished in the top 36 at the state meet.

Freshman Finn Anderson finished in eighth place at the state meet, the highest finish among Cavalier golfers, while Lucas Dagget (T-31st) and Andrew Gerlach (T- 36th) also return. Murdy has high expectations for that trio, but said the key will be finding two more golfers to replace Henrich and Schnabel.

“We’ll be looking for two people to kind of step up to play our four and five spot,” Murdy said. “Hopefully we can find a sixth person to where we can get a little in-house competition between everybody.”

Some of the golfers that are expected to compete to fill those roles this season will be junior Gannon May, sophomore Jesse Hernandez, eighth-graders Aiden Hernandez and Owen Vogel, and seventh-grader Matthew Gerlach. Murdy likes the prospects his team has.

“We’ve got a mixture of young and old that have a good chance to help us out,” Murdy said. “We’re just kind of hoping they figure it out quickly, and then use those players that we have coming up and see what we can get done.”

The team, which plays at the Sioux Valley Invitational on Monday and the Madison Invitational on Tuesday, has prepared for the season by spending individual time on the golf course throughout the summer. Murdy is excited to see that progress carry into the season.

“A lot of them have just done their own individual thing,” Murdy said. “Just being at Lee Park, Matthew Gerlach and Andrew Gerlach have done a lot of practicing this summer. I know with Lucas Daggett, Finn (Anderson), and Jesse (Hernandez), they’re going to play a lot of golf throughout the summer. They come to me every once in a while, for a little lesson, a little tune-up, to make sure everything is going well, and so it’s going be fun to see it in action for the fall.”

Murdy says there is not one particular tournament that he is keeping his eye on, but said that he tells his team to treat every tournament the same.

“We don’t try to necessarily say that one tournament is better than the other. Everything is all building experience for us,” Murdy said. “So, if we have a good tournament, then we can build off it. If we have a bad tournament, we can build off that as well, and just figure out our weaknesses and our strengths and just keep going.”

When it comes to the team’s goals this season, Murdy says he wants to see each golfer have fun, as well as improve each day.

“I want kids to have fun. I want them to improve on something every week, whether it’s short game, driving, mental, having more fun on the golf course, whatever it is, that they walk away from the golf course that day knowing ‘I improved on this,’” Murdy said. “If we can get that through them and they just kind of keep building on that, good things will happen to them on and off the golf course.”