High school girls volleyball season opens with No. 2 Lakeville North toppling No. 1 Champlin Park

Not much separates Champlin Park and Lakeville North in the preseason girls volleyball rankings, and not much separated them when they met Thursday in Champlin on opening day of the season.

Lakeville North, ranked second in Class 4A in the preseason poll by the coaches association, defeated Champlin Park, ranked first, in five sets, 25-20, 25-22, 25-23, 26-24, 15-11.

Champlin Park played without three players, one of them All-Metro first-team right outside hitter Carly Gilk, who has committed to the Gophers. Coach John Yunker chose not to comment on the reason for the players’ absence but described the situation as “a growing experience for everybody.”

Despite the absences, every set was tight.

“Every season, this opening match is quite a doozy,” Panthers coach Jackie Richter said.

Champlin Park also began last season with a loss to Lakeville North in five sets and finished the season 24-7.

“Jackie and I joke that maybe we just clear the rest of our nonconference schedules, start over and just play each other on a regular basis,” Yunker said.

For each of the teams, the season started with a challenge and will build to another. Champlin Park plays in Class 4A Section 5 with Wayzata, winner of the past four big-class state championships, two of them undefeated seasons. The result is that Champlin Park last reached the state tournament in 2018, and it won the championship that season.

Champlin Park won at least 23 games each of the past three seasons but never reached state. This season, Wayzata is without Stella and Olivia Swenson, twin sisters now on the Gophers roster, and is ranked eighth. Rogers, ranked fourth, defeated Wayzata 3-1 on Thursday.

Lakeville North must overcome two-pronged difficulty to reach the state tournament. Lakeville South and New Prague both play with Lakeville North in Section 1. Lakeville South is ranked third in Class 4A. New Prague, ranked seventh, won the section last season and lost to Wayzata in the state championship match.

Lakeville North faces other challenges: It has two more road matches, against Stillwater and Minnetonka, before its home opener against East Ridge on Sept. 4.

“The beauty of having such a strong opponent right away is they’re able to, because of their skill and abilities, expose the areas of your game that need work,” Richter said. “Champlin, as they always do, showed us that we have a lot to work on.”

Champlin Park will seek its first win of the season Thursday in Elk River.

“Neither team had breathing room, and that’s just a testament to how close we are in ability and competitiveness,” Yunker said. “It puts the pressure on the girls when you have an opportunity to score a point, whether we get a free ball or whatever else it is. You have to take advantage of it.”