BROOKINGS — The Brookings girls’ golf team will open the 2025 season on Tuesday and the Bobcats will have some new faces at the varsity level.

Brookings graduated its best golfer from last season in Delilah Fuls but head coach Holly Sebern is excited to see how this year’s roster performs.

“I’m really excited about [the team heading into the season]. We did lose Delilah, who was our top scorer and leader of the team, but Miyah Foerster has been showing good progress since the end of last season and the beginning of this year. At practice she’s been pretty solid and her rounds so far, we haven’t played too many because of the weather, but her rounds seem decent. I’m hopeful about that. We have four returners and letter winners from state, so we’re going to have some new ones that haven’t played before and I’m excited to see how they play,” Sebern said.

The Bobcats have six junior’s on their varsity roster. Those are Josie Bertrand, Lauren Botnem, Foerster, Aubrey Knutzen, Kamryn Streich and Oakley VanMaanen. The final two roster spots belong to freshman Madeline Enderson and seventh grader Tafney Lunn. 

Sebern said she likes how she has a solid junior class and they can also help out with the two younger players on the team.

“The juniors are good with the younger girls. With [Lunn], I’m hopeful that she’s ready for [varsity]. I think she’s got a good personality for it. She’s been showing great progress and I’m excited for her first [round], but you never know. … I’m excited to see the mix of the roster and see how they grow throughout the season.

Sebern said that the biggest strength of her team is how they hit it off the tee but they will find success if they can putt well.

“They can drive the ball pretty far, but it doesn’t always go straight and we’ve been working on the fundamentals of that. We’ve also been working a lot on the greens. I keep telling them that’s the most important part in my mind, so we’ve been doing longer drills on the green and chipping and sand shots. But I think their long game is pretty good. We just need to make sure we get those putts and chips in without having to three-putt,” Sebern said.

With a bit of a new roster at the varsity level, Sebern said that she just wants to see the team as a whole improve throughout the seasons. If they do that, the results should come.

“My goal really is to see them progress. I’m not sure how they’re going to start out this year because I haven’t worked with some of the ones that we pulled up as much until this year. My goal is to just be competitive and improve,” Sebern said.