Things have come full circle for the Aberdeen Roncalli girls’ basketball team.

Last year, the Cavaliers were looking at a big question mark after losing all of their starters from the season before. Now, Roncalli has its top seven players coming back.

“Last year was a giant unknown. We go from having a bunch of seniors that played a lot of minutes to then having basically one person that ever played any varsity basketball in Ava (Hanson),” said Roncalli coach Derek Larson. “And now we have completely the opposite, we bring back a whole starting five, and bring back our top seven from last year that played.”

That’s a good sign for a team that was one game away from making the SoDak 16 last season.

“We had a good year last year. I think we are going to be a lot more experienced, because we all got to play last year,” Larson said. “Hopefully, that pays some dividends, especially early in the year. We didn’t graduate anyone. A lot of teams did.”

The Cavaliers will definitely not lack for experience. Hanson, Camryn Bain, Maddie Huber, McKenna O’Keeefe and Claire Crawford comprised the starting unit a year ago, with Rylee Voeller and Morgan Helms playing key roles off the bench.

Larson said he has already noticed a major difference in practice this season.

“We’re light years (from) where we were at last year,” Larson said. “The unknown was just the biggest one, what’s this going to look like compared to the past. Now, we kind of have an idea of hopefully what we want this to look like. Now, it’s just coming to compete every day in practice is going to be huge for us.”

Look for the Cavaliers to play the same type of style that they have become known for. Roncalli will get after teams defensively and play sound fundamental basketball.

“As we tell all of our kids, we’re pretty much going to be undersized at every spot. We’re not going to be taller or stronger than most teams we play,” Larson said. “We’re going to have to make up for some of that just playing aggressive on the defensive end. That’s kind of where we’ve hung our hat over my tenure here and our program, is winning on the defensive end and we have to continue to do that.”

Last year, with new players at every position, there were some nights when the Cavaliers lacked a bit of consistency on defense, and that will be an area of emphasis this season.

“You’re always going to have nights where you’re not going to shoot the ball well or things don’t go that well on the offensive end, but you can always bring the same intensity on the defensive end,” Larson said. “That’s something that we really want to preach to all the kids.”

Roncalli, which opens its season by hosting Redfield on Thursday, will be one of several quality squads this year in the Northeast Conference. Last season NEC member Hamlin won the State A championship with fellow league member Sisseton finishing third.

“Sisseton brings back everyone also. They’re going to be tough. There’s going to be some other tough ones on our schedule, too. I think the top half of our conference is pretty solid,” Larson said. “Groton brings pretty much everyone back. Milbank brings everyone back. Hamlin is going to be good, even though they lost some, so there’s definitely not going to be a cake walk in the conference. Hopefully, we can carry over some success that they had in volleyball into the basketball season.”

While the Cavaliers have yet to play a game this season, Larson said there is a certain standard at the school and that includes making it to the state tournament. Roncalli won the State A title in 2021, and was fifth in Class B two years ago.

“We definitely want to take one practice, one game at a time first, but at the end of the day, our expectation is to make the state tournament. We have it written on our calendar every year, whether its this year or last year or five years ago,” Larson said. “We always write it in there every single year and again, that is our expectation. There’s definitely been times where we haven’t made it, but that is our expectation to hopefully be there in March.”

Larson knows what his roster looks like, but he also understands that there is work to be done to accomplish that goal of playing in the state tourney. He said it comes down to a couple of main elements.

“Not to just be a year older, but a year better. Again, hopefully that experience helps,” Larson said. “And also just play as a group. We talk about this cohesiveness that I feel like we have, just making sure that we have that gel as the year progresses.”