This spring, the boys’ golf team begins their highly anticipated season. With the loss of dedicated seniors last year, the team is hoping to continue their success with their new players this season, and work towards competing at sections and the state tournament in June.

The team is trying to work past their defeats last season, after placing 6th out of 12 teams at sections and not qualifying for state. They also only had two players make it to the second day of sections. Due to these defeats, the group is hoping to change their mindsets to comeback this season. “The potential in our team is definitely there. We’ve got a lot of skilled players, but we just need to string something together,” senior captain Adrian Lawrenz said.

To help them achieve their end of the season of goals, the team is depending on returning and new players to help them achieve success on the course. Along with gaining new members, the team is seeing their program grow, with more and more students trying out each year. “Our goal as a program is not to recruit stars. We want to really focus on getting more kids into the program earlier… so that they can form the necessary skills for winning,” Lawrenz said.

With the season just beginning, it’s still hard to see which players will stand out the most, especially with the weather problems. Similar to last year’s season, the weather conditions have given the season a rocky start. Last year, the mid-April blizzard pushed practices and matches inside, so with this year’s storm, the team is expecting to experience the same setbacks. “We hope the weather will cooperate and the snow will go away soon,” senior captain Nate Anderson said.

The team will face some tough competition in their section this season, with their biggest competitors being the teams from Edina and Wayzata. Similar to the section, in their conference, they have teams like Chaska and Chanhassen to compete against.

As the season begins, the team is hoping for it to be one for the books, and change their unsuccessful record. “I can’t speak for everyone, but my goals this year are to win a tournament and advance to state,” Anderson said.

Lawrenz has similar goals, both for the team and personally. “I really hope we can win two or three matches this season, and, of course, make it to state. Our program has been underperforming for a few years now, and I want to change starting this year,” Lawrenz said.