By: J Daniel Pearson
As expected, Osceola High took care of business on Wednesday night — dropping Harmony in straight sets (25-9, 25-14, 25-11) — to win the FHSAA Class 7A, District 7 championship. The win moved the Lady Kowboys to 21-4 on the season and clinched the top seed for next week’s regional tournament.
Osceola will next host a regional quarterfinal on Wednesday (Oct. 23). For as long as they win, they will have home court advantage through the regional final, Oct. 30.
It was a historic win of sorts for the Kowboys.
Not only did it wrap up their third consecutive district championship and eighth in the last ninth years, but it also gave Carrie Palmi her 400th career coaching win at Osceola (20th season).
“I certainly don’t view it as any great individual achievement,” Palmi said. “Rather it is a tribute to the great athletes, assistant coaches and support personnel I have had the honor of working with for the last two decades. They are the ones that deserve the credit for the wins, I’m just so thankful to them for making this job so enjoyable.”
This week’s district tournament was hardly suspenseful.
With the district composed of five teams from Osceola County (Osceola, Harmony, Tohopekaliga, St. Cloud, and Celebration), the tournament was essentially a repeat of Orange Belt Conference championship tournament held earlier this month. In that event, Osceola blitzed through Liberty, Gateway, and Harmony in straight sets to claim their third consecutive title.
It was more of the same this week. As top seed in the five team district, Osceola received a first round bye before dispatching St. Cloud in Wednesday’s semifinals, 25-13, 25-18, 25-11. In Thursday’s championship match, Harmony did not fare any better as Osceola dominated from the beginning.
Once again, junior Cate Palmi (13 kills, 3 aces) and Jordin Southall (11 kills, 3 aces) had huge games from from the outside; while Brooklyn Sippio (8 kills, 1 block) and Sophie Spivey (6 kills, 1 ace) also had big nights on the attack. But it was a total team effort, as Osceola got big performances on defense as well as displaying its strong service game.
Andrea Rodriguez had eight of Osceola’s 19 team aces – which did not include the hard serves that Harmony was digging off the floor, keeping the Longhorns from getting into any type of offensive rhythm.
“After having a couple of games cancelled last week from the hurricane, I really didn’t know what to expect tonight after the long layoff,” Palmi said. “But I could tell in warm-ups this team was psyched and ready to play. “We really got a consistent effort from both our starters and reserves tonight.”
The win against Harmony was the third of the year against the Longhorns and moved Osceola to 10-0 against county opposition this year, with all 10 victories coming in straight sets. It also insured the Lady Kowboys would be the top seed in the Region 2 tournament, where the main opposition is expected to come from Vero Beach (17-4, ranked 8th in 7A), long-time state power Jupiter (18-5), West Orange (14-4) and Olympia (17-5 ranked 9th in 7A).
“Winning districts is always a team goal, but competition at regionals is at a whole new level and this is where the real work begins,” Osceola coach Carrie Palmi noted. Jupiter has always been a great team but they have been ranked behind Vero Beach all season. West Orange has a lot of talent and can be dangerous too. I think we match-up pretty well with Olympia, but they took a set off Winter Park – the number #2 ranked team in the entire state, which is something we were not able to accomplish. Regionals are going to be highly competitive and should provide some great volleyball for the fans to watch.”
With the second place finish in districts, Harmony (13-7) is expected to secure one of four at-large bids to the Region 2 Tournament. They will play on the road on Wednesday, most likely as the number seven seed and will play at either Jupiter or Vero Beach.
