The Class AA boys' golf tournament gets underway Monday at Sioux Falls' Westward Ho Country Club and while it looks like everybody is going to be chasing the Yankton Bucks, which finished as the runner-up in 2008, it is golf and anything can happen.

"They're one of about five (teams) up there," Stevens head coach Phil Hunt said. "It could go as high as 10 teams or so. There have probably been 10 teams that have shot a score of 310 or lower this year and any one of them could be right there if things go right for them."

The Bucks, led by a senior quintet of Tyler Frick (tied for 16th in 2008), Dillon May, Gabe Messler, Chris Hoffman and Joey Nickles fired a team score of 307 at the Eastern South Dakota conference tournament, 21 shots better than the next best team's score in the field, Watertown.

The Bucks had four players shoot scores of 80 or lower at the ESD event, but Hunt warns that looking solely at qualifying scores can be a touch misleading.

"The qualifying scores were from our conference tournaments and we played the (Greater Dakota Conference) in Spearfish where it was a rain and windstorm," Hunt said. "They played the ESD at Huron and I think they had a little bit better conditions."

The scores would seem to bear that out as the top six qualifying team scores coming into the state tournament were all turned in by ESD schools.

"(Sioux Falls) Roosevelt, Washington and O'Gorman all have to be in there," Hunt said when talking about teams capable of winning the tournament. "They are playing on something of a home course and are all capable. Aberdeen, Pierre and Watertown will be right there, too. Everybody's kind of got the two and three deep, so if they go low it's going to be hard to catch up with them. We're certainly capable, we've been around 310 before and if we get a little break in the weather and have four (individuals) play well, who knows?"

Hunt feels that the Sioux Falls schools will have some advantage in that they will be slightly more familiar with the course than some of the other teams. Stevens hasn't played at Westward Ho all season and Hunt thinks the last time one of his teams was on the course was when the Raider girls played there in the late 90s.

"We get to play there about once every 10 years," Hunt said. "The Sioux Falls teams probably have a few kids who are members and I think they play a 9-hole tournament there during the year, so they'll probably be a little more familiar with it. We'll just go out like everybody else and play a practice round Sunday and take our shot Monday and Tuesday."

The Sturgis Scoopers come into the tournament with the 10th best qualifying score and could also be a factor in the team race. The Scoopers have the top returning individual from last year's state tournament in senior Kyle Kopplin, who shot a two-day total of 157 last year at Meadowbrook Golf Course in Rapid City to finish fifth. His younger brother, Clay, shot a 161 last year as a freshman to finish tied for eighth.

Sioux Falls Washington is the two-time Class AA defending champion and comes into the tournament with the seventh-best qualifying score.

Frick, Kyle Kopplin, Watertown's Josh Weismantel and Sioux Falls Lincoln's Jordan Haeckel make up the No. 1 flight and will be the first group to tee off at 9 a.m. on Monday.

The team with the top four individual scores will be crowned the state champion.