More than a handful of familiar faces were setting and serving back and forth Monday morning on the opening day of practice for the Lakeville South girls volleyball team.

Cougars coach Steve Willingham didn’t have to spend as much time giving instructions to eight players on the middle court who are returning from his Class 4A championship squad.

For the first time in his 12 state appearances, Willingham won it all last year. Another new experience for him is that Lakeville South is the preseason team to beat in Minnesota high school girls volleyball.

“We’ve been able to be in the mix to be a top-10 team for a while,” Willingham said. “Nobody said the words ‘state champion’ in our gym today, but I do think it will be a little bit different vibe.”

They will be a target once the season starts Aug. 28 vs. Stewartville, but the Cougars are already carrying higher expectations than last year, when they finished 32-2, including 12-0 in the South Suburban.

The challenge of repeating as state champions “made us more motivated,” junior outside hitter Elle Utecht said.

Wayzata won consecutive state titles with four straight from 2019-23, excluding the cancelled COVID-19 tournament. Marshall won three in a row in Class 3A from 2021-23.

“Just because we won state last year we can’t settle,” senior outside hitter Romi Chlebecek said. “One isn’t enough. We want another one. We can take what we learned from last year and put that into practice and grow. Every team is going to play its best against us.”

Champlin Park, the 4A runner-up in 2024, was the only team to beat Lakeville South last year, and it happened twice in the first month of the season.

The heartbreak of those early losses helped propel the Cougars past Champlin Park in a five-set victory for the state championship at Xcel Energy Center last November.

Avenging the Champlin Park losses meant figuring out how to slow down Star Tribune All-Minnesota Player of the Year Carly Gilk, now a freshman outside hitter for the Gophers.

“Early on we discovered this was the team to beat and our best matchup,” Utecht said. “It was definitely discouraging to keep losing to them early in the season, but it was so amazing for us to figure out how to do it in the end. It was a really good moment to overcome those difficulties.”

Junior right side/setter Kaelyn Bjorklund, Utecht and Chlebecek combined for 50 kills in the championship match. That dominant trio returns along with middle blockers Grace Hertaus, Addyson Quandt and Auri Dallas.

Hertaus is recovering from a shoulder injury that kept her out of the state tournament, but she enjoyed working with her new and old teammates Monday.

“We did lose one of our liberos and one of our main setters, but we do have some great new girls coming up,” Hertaus said. “We just have to keep growing our bond. We are working harder than last year because we know people are coming at us.”

Carrying the label of No. 1 team entering the season is different for Lakeville South, but it has several returning players with experience winning championships at the club level — and now at state as well. They won’t forget what it took to finish on top.

“It’s definitely a confidence booster that we have so many girls back,” Bjorklund said. “The energy has to come from us right away, especially being captains. We’re going to make sure everyone is locked in and focused from the first practice.”