Roseville advances to Class 4A volleyball semifinal clash with top seed Lakeville South; Champlin Park, East Ridge also win

Class 4A’s state volleyball semifinals are set: No. 5 Roseville will look to upset No. 1 Lakeville South on Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, and No. 2 Champlin Park and No. 3 East Ridge, after quarterfinal sweeps, will play a rematch of a regular-season clash.

Roseville’s volleyball team hasn’t lost in a month. The Raiders don’t plan to start now, even if they’re the underdog.

Led by 48 assists from All-State senior setter Kadence Davison, the fifth-seeded Raiders beat fourth seed St. Michael-Albertville 3-1 in the Class 4A quarterfinals Wednesday.

In its ninth trip to state, Roseville (27-5) dropped the first set to the Knights 25-20. But Davison set up back-to-back kills for sophomore middle blocker Sophia Gholson-Johnson to take match point in the second set, 28-26.

“We have really good urgency, and we want to finish it off,” Davison said. “Compared to other teams, where they wait for other people to make mistakes, we just want to put it away.”

Davison has 862 assists this season. As a freshman in 2021, she was a leader on the last Roseville squad to make it to state.

“You can just tell she plays with so much confidence and poise out there,” head coach Greg Ueland said.

One of two Class 4A teams without a player reaching 6 feet (the other is Apple Valley), Roseville leaned on its excellence at passing and serving — plus making in-match adjustments to hit more aggressively and run through its middles — to win sets three and four, both 25-23.

Meanwhile, beyond the tall curtain separating the quarterfinal courts at Xcel Energy Center, Lakeville South defeated No. 8 Apple Valley 3-0. Roseville will take a no-fear approach against the top-seeded Cougars in the semifinals Thursday.

“We’re focusing on ourselves,” said Roseville senior outside hitter Logan Creegan, who had a team-high 16 kills for Roseville on Wednesday. “Obviously we are the underdogs, so we have nothing to lose.”

Lakeville South (29-2) plays with a deep roster and plenty of attacking options, which helped it beat rival Lakeville North in the Section 1 championship. The Cougars are at state for the first time since 2018.

“It’s really fun to be up there and be able to have so many really good players that can terminate a ball,” senior setter Olivia Wagner said. “I have players that I can really trust, and I think that’s really important that it doesn’t matter who I give the ball to, I know that they’ll finish it.”

East Ridge faces a good problem. Too many liberos.

Junior Aliyah Kleven, freshman Brynlee Opland and freshman Charlotte Homez all play the position for their club teams. But in East Ridge’s 3-0 sweep over Minnetonka, only Kleven played libero, with Opland as an outside hitter and Homez as a defensive specialist.

It provides an overabundance of innate defenders on the floor for the Raptors — “Maybe a new three-libero offense that we just created,” head coach Steve Anderson said.

That defense helped the Raptors shut down Minnetonka 25-20, 25-18, 25-13. Kleven had a match-high 17 digs, followed by Opland’s 11.

East Ridge (25-6) will face No. 2 seed Champlin Park in the semifinals, hoping to avenge a 3-1 regular-season loss in September.

The Raptors finished as state runner-up in 2021, but that was a different, senior-heavy team, Anderson said. The current squad is younger, with six underclassmen, and has developed a balanced attack, supported by senior setter Alexis Opland.

Alexis Opland will head to Seton Hall next year with the Raptors’ career assist record (2,722).

No. 2 Champlin Park also swept its quarterfinal against last year’s third-place finisher in Class 4A, Anoka. In its first tournament appearance since winning a title in 2018, Champlin Park beat the Tornadoes behind a team-high 21 kills from senior opposite/outside hitter Carly Gilk and 44 assists from senior setter Reese Axness.

The Rebels (29-3) feature eight seniors; Gilk, Axness and senior right-side/middle blocker Kathryn Adler all were with the Rebels as freshmen. They toughed out three years sharing a section with Wayzata, which won the past four Class 4A tournaments.

“[Being here] sort of makes me reflect on my career as a whole and all that we’ve accomplished together,” Adler said. “It’s just a really special way to end it with Champlin Park.”