There will be some familiar faces in new places, and plenty of new faces gaining varsity experience for the Aberdeen Roncalli tennis team this spring.

The Cavaliers return three members with varsity experience this year in Gannon May, Ezra Feickert, and Ben Goebel.

“Those are going to be my guys this year, the ones that came back from last year,” said Roncalli coach Jason Haskell. “We’ve got a lot of new faces, young faces, underneath that.”

May will be the team leader, jumping for number three singles to the top of the Roncalli lineup this spring.

“He’s our senior playing number one,” Haskell said. “He’s definitely going to be the leader.”

Feickert will move up the ladder in singles as well and has impressed in practice so far in the first two weeks.

“His shot has improved a ton from last year,” Haskell said. “I just saw him here for the last week or so, forehand is looking really good, backhand he’s got some consistency there now. Serve looks good. I’m looking for some good things out of Ezra, also.”

Goebel will be among the leaders for the Cavaliers.

“As a senior I’ll look for him to show some leadership, also,” Haskell said.

After that, a variety of inexperienced players will look to step up and fill some voids. That group includes the likes of Caleb Stoks, Liam Voehl, Asher Keller, Elijah Alvear and others.

“There’s a lot of unknowns yet,” Haskell said. “We’ve still got some informational matches getting played.”

Regardless of who fills those spots, it will provide chances to gain some major varsity minutes for underclassmen.

“To get them quality match play this early in their career, that will be huge going forward,” Haskell said. “It’s going to create some opportunities for growth for us this year, but the only way you can grow is get thrown into the fire.”

Haskell said the expectations will be different this season compared to last year when the Cavaliers featured a veteran lineup.

“Expectations are only helpful if they’re realistic. If you create too lofty of goals, all you do is end up slumping your shoulders all the time,” Haskell said. “We’re going to have a heavy focus on fun and growth. That’s not to say we’re not going to win some matches. I believe we’re going to win some matches, and individually we’ve got some kids that are going to be able to compete.”

It’s just that this year’s expectations will be modified with half the lineup featuring new players.

“We’re definitely not chasing first, second or third at state, like last year was a different story,” Haskell said. “I think that’s part of your goal as a coach is to set some achievable expectations and set the tone for your kids and give them something to go after, to achieve and feel good about it.”

One of the biggest challenges to start the season will be pairing up doubles teams and finding the right chemistry with those players.

“That’s probably one of the biggest challenges right now is who’s playing with who? In the past we’ve had some kids that do a lot of summer tennis and they played summer tournaments together, and they had that chemistry together,” Haskell said. “We have a lot of multi-sport athletes on the team right now, a lot of them are playing baseball all summer or basketball all summer, and they’re playing tennis for me right now.”

The Cavaliers will get their season started this week, competing in the West River Invitational in Rapid City today through Saturday.

“This will be a good trip out west,” Haskell said. “There will be a couple matches where we’ll be nice and competitive with, and there will be a couple matches that’ll challenge us right off the bat.”