It’s been a regular season unlike many others in recent memory for the Aberdeen Cougars, but now the girls’ hockey team hopes it finishes just like it did last year.

The defending state champions have been an elite squad for the past decade, winning seven of the past nine state titles. The Cougars enter this year’s tourney as the fourth seed and will take on fifth-seeded Mitchell in the opening round at 6 p.m. Thursday in Sioux Falls.

“You look at the league and there’s just a lot more parity than there was a decade ago, which is exciting for the players and the fans,” said Aberdeen coach David Sandvig. “A lot more to watch, especially the second-round day will be an exciting day for folks.”

He said there have been unpredictable results throughout the regular season.

“There’s been some wins and losses across the state that were surprising to watch this year,” Sandvig.

The Cougars suffered through some adversity this season, most notably an injury to starting goalie Chloe Vikander, who missed more than a month of the season. That, however, allowed younger players an opportunity and gave Sandvig a chance to experiment with his lines.

“The last time we played Mitchell we lost to them. We had our U14 goalie in that game, but she only gave up three goals. We only put one in,” Sandvig said. “That was fresh off of Chloe’s injury and people were a little rattled.”

Sandvig expects the game to look much differently this time around.

“I’m assuming they’re going to be a little different than who they were the last time we saw them and I’m pretty confident we’ll look a little different than the last time we paired up against them,” Sandvig said. “But they’re always a tough team. They’ve got good players on that team. One mistake against one good player and it’s a difference in a game.”

Should the Cougars win their opening round game, a semifinal contest against unbeaten Sioux Falls would likely be in the offing.

The two met just recently in Aberdeen that resulted in a hard-fought 3-0 Sioux Falls victory. Sandvig was paying close attention to how his team’s lines held up against the Flyers.

“We kind of played all of our lines evenly just to see how they stacked up against the best team in the state. That’s kind of what we wanted to learn from that last game,” Sandvig said. “We learned a few things along the way, and now it’s just a matter of what can you apply.”

Sandvig said the key to having success this weekend comes down to a key item on each end of the ice.

“I think it’s really taking care of the house as they call it, that area in front of the net, that’s kind of shaped like a house. I think that’s the important part,” Sandvig said. “You look back at some of our failures in some games and it’s just been breakdowns in that space. Depends on the time of the game, depends on the attitude of the point of the game. That’s one of the areas where it’s very common for players to cheat there, kind of habits, and just panic and try and go to a puck. And you get too many people going to one spot, well that means somebody’s sitting there back door, giving your goalie no chance at a save.”

The other key, according to Sandvig, is maintaining the puck in the offensive zone. He said the Cougars need to find a way to finish off possessions.

“I think outside of that our girls are doing a good job of finding opportunities to get shots,” he said. “They’ve still got to bury the puck.”

There is little doubt that the Cougars have more big-game experience than any other team in the field, but Sandvig said that can work two different ways.

“There’s two groups of people in that, every game that we go into,” Sandvig said. “Most of the girls that we play against all weekend will have never had that championship, and so who’s hungrier for it? That’s I think the challenge with our players. Some of them have two of them, some of them have one them. Are your still hungry for another one or are you content with what you have?”

Sandvig said that from top to bottom, each of the eight teams feels like they have a chance to have a big impact during the three-day tournament.

“It should be a pretty good tournament,” Sandvig said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some surprises.”