Lakeville South, Champlin Park advance to Class 4A girls volleyball championship

It didn’t happen when they first thought it would, but at this point, it’s safe to say the Lakeville South girls volleyball team isn’t at all worried about timing.

The Cougars advanced to Saturday’s Class 4A championship match ― the first state final appearance in program history — where they will face Champlin Park after sweeping Roseville in the semifinals, 25-17, 25-23 and 25-11, on Thursday at Xcel Energy Center.

“We thought last year was going to be our year and we didn’t end up making it,” said junior outside hitter Romi Chlebecek, who led the team with 18 kills.

In fact, the Cougars started the season believing they were facing rough waters.

“We thought it was going to be a rough season because we lost so many seniors from last year,” sophomore setter Kaelyn Bjorklund said.

The season worked out much differently than expected. The Cougars won 13 of their first 15 matches, with the only two losses coming in tournament play against Champlin Park.

“We kind of proved ourselves wrong,” Bjorklund said.

Cougars coach Steve Willingham gave credit to the remaining seniors for the team’s ability to exceed expectations.

“We have four seniors and they’ve been amazing. They’re kind of the backbone of how we’ve played the first ball. And you know, that sets up everything else,” he said.

After closing out a first-set victory, Lakeville South took a commanding 14-4 lead in the second.

But Roseville refused to go away quietly. The Raiders, who hadn’t lost in more than a month prior to Thursday, put up a spirited rally. They cut the margin to a single point twice in the second set, but couldn’t close the deal.

Having expended an entire match’s worth of energy in its rally, Roseville couldn’t maintain pressure in the third set, allowing Lakeville South to pull away for the victory.

“I’m really proud of our resilience,” Roseville coach Greg Ueland said. “I love this whole team and I’m really proud of our fight.”

Willingham credited his team with playing it’s best volleyball when it’s needed most.

“We played some of our best volleyball of the season against a really, really good team,” he said. “I feel good about the headspace that our team is in right now. We seem to be peaking and I’m super excited for us to be in this next match.”

Champlin Park withstood the best East Ridge had to offer, coming back from a 2-1 deficit to pull out a five-set 25-16, 20-25, 18-25, 25-23, 15-12 victory to advance to the championship match on Saturday at 7 p.m..

Champlin Park had defeated East Ridge in four sets in September, but the rematch was much more hotly contested.

Carly Gilk had 38 kills to lead the Rebels, who’s last state tournament appearance in 2018 resulted in a state championship.

Kathryn Adler added 22 kills and setter Reese Axness piled up 57 assists for Champlin Park

Three East Ridge players had double-digits in kills, paced by Paige Bellfield’s 13.

Anya Schimdt was named 2024 Ms. Baden, the award given to Minnesota’s top senior player. The Rogers right side/setter was selected from a group of five finalists that included Nova Classical outside hitter Ava Ball, Burnsville outside hitter Mesaiya Bettis, Rush City libero/outside hitter McKenna Garr and Champlin Park right side Carly Gilk. Read more here.