The King’s Fork High School golf season gets under way this week, and the Bulldogs are looking forward to building on last year.

After reaching the region tournament as a group last year, Coach Robert Casteen and the players are excited about the season. The golf season officially starts in South Hampton Roads with the Bulldogs competing in two matches this week.

“We’re hopeful about this season,” Casteen said. “Right now, it’s all about getting everybody rolling and getting everybody on the same page. We have some returners and some newcomers, so we just want to continue getting better every day.”

King’s Fork returns Rebecca Hutchings, Landon Martino, Matthew Vigil and Zane Wise. All were among the top players from last season. Hutchings, in particular, advanced all the way to the state tournament for Class 4 girls as a freshman last season. She is looking to pick up where she left off from last season.

“I’m just looking forward to improving my golf game even more this year,” Hutchings said. “I look forward to being able to qualify for states once again.”

“That was a great experience for her,” Casteen said. “I don’t see any reason why she wouldn’t be back there this year. She has a great work ethic, and she’ll be there and possibly even better.”

Even though Hutchings was the only person to represent King’s Fork last year, the Bulldogs’ goal for this season is to add even more representatives to the state tournament. Casteen knows that it all starts at regionals. If the whole team can perform well, there is a chance they can qualify for the state tournament as a team.

The Bulldogs will play in two matches this week — one against Western Branch High School Thursday morning, and then an invitational Friday morning, which will feature about 10 different high schools in the area at Bide-A-Wee golf course.

“We just want to go out there and play within our games,” Casteen said. “We don’t want to be worried about what someone is shooting. We just want to play our game and shoot our best scores possible and build on that each match. We are going to see some good competition on Friday, and that’ll be good for us to start the season off to build our confidence going forward.”