The pieces appear to be in place for another strong Aberdeen Roncalli golf season this fall.

The Cavaliers return four boys off of last year’s squad, led by leaders Finn Anderson (16th at the State A Tournament a year ago) and senior Gannon May.

Jesse Hernandez and Lucas Daggett are also key varsity members.

Newcomers Matthew Gerlach and Owen Vogel will be counted on to replace departed senior Andrew Gerlach.

“Hopefully, one of them can fill Andrew’s shoes,” said Roncalli coach Jon Murdy. “He did a lot of good things for us his senior year.”

Having a veteran crew returning should help to ensure that the Cavaliers will hit the ground running this fall.

“It helps quite a bit,” Murdy said. “It helps me even going into the season knowing who’s doing what.”

The Cavaliers will rely on Anderson and May for leadership, although they have different styles when it comes to that.

“He’s kind of a staple on the team We look to him to be a little bit more of that leader,” Murdy said of May. “Finn does all the leading with his golf clubs. He’s not really going to talk too much, where I think Gannon will be a little bit more vocal.”

Obviously, with golf being a team sport as well an individual activity, each player is important and all are needed for a solid team score. Murdy said each golfer plays a key role.

“Every kid on the team has a role. I’m not going to sit there and tell my five guy, you need to shoot 75, I need you to not shoot in the 100s,” Murdy said. “For the (top) four guys, I’m not going to sit there and say you need to shoot even par, we need you to be in right around this number and realize that even if they’re not having their best stuff that day, if we can get you right around this number, we can still be successful.”

Murdy said he doesn’t need to motivate his players to compete. If anything, he encourages them to understand the courses that they are playing on and adjust to the surroundings.

“When it comes to tournament play or anything like that, all of them want to win. Individually, team-wise, they all want to win,” Murdy said. “Sometimes, it’s getting them to realize this golf course doesn’t really suit your style of play, so let’s not try to over exceed what we’re trying to do. If it happens, it happens, but we have to change our golf game just a little bit to that golf course, instead of hitting driver all the time.”

Roncalli’s rich golf history is well documented. The Cavaliers have won five straight Northeast Conference championships, 15 of the last 20 NEC titles, and 22 overall. Roncalli is coming off a sixth place at last year’s state tourney. Roncalli has won three state team championships, and had four golfers win individual state titles.

Murdy said he doesn’t really talk about the school’s tradition much.

“I usually just talk about golf itself, not necessarily golf at Roncalli,” Murdy said. “Golf itself is an honor and integrity game to where, even when you don’t notice, people are looking at you, that if you do well people will notice you, if you do poorly people will notice you.”

As the Cavaliers prepare to embark on another golf season, Murdy said his main focus comes down to one thing.

“It’s the three plaques, conference, region, state. That’s kind of my goal every year. I want us to compete at conference, I want us to compete at region, I want us to compete at state,” Murdy said. “Would it be great if we won all three of them, absolutely, but we if we compete at each event and we try to compete at each event, that’s all I want.”