With victories already this season over some of the region’s top teams, Osceola’s volleyball team le little doubt they’ll also be the team to beat in next month’s Orange Belt Conference tournament with a straight set (25-18, 25-18, 2511) road win over 2021 champion Tohopekaliga Monday night.
“I think we are really ahead of schedule compared to where I thought we would be at this point of the season,” Kowboys coach Carrie Palmi said about her team, that went to 12-2 with the win, and is currently ranked in the state of Florida overall and second in Class 7A. “We are playing the hardest schedule in school history, but we scheduled that way for a reason. We have a veteran team and we wanted to make sure that we would be battle-tested when we got to the post-season.”
Palmi pointed to the Nike Tournament Sept. 2-3 in Tampa, where Osceola went 5-1, as an example.
“Based on who was in that tournament, we could have easily gone 0-6, but we were willing to sacrice that for the experience we gained,” she said.
That tough 2022 schedule has included wins over ranked teams South Fork, Hagerty and Lake Nona, a split with Bishop Moore and a hard-fought 3-2 loss to Winter Park. Overall, the Kowboys are now 7-2 against teams ranked in the Top 10 of their respective classifications.
Monday, Osceola dominated Tohopekaliga. The Tigers, who defeated the Kowboys three times last year, had no answer for Osceola’s thunderous hitting combination of senior Kaitlyn Taylor and freshman Cate Palmi, as the two combined for 25 kills.
The first set was relatively close at 2117 until Andrea Bravo recorded three consecutive service aces. On the second set point, Taylor ended the rst set with a thunderous cross court spike.
In similar fashion, Tohopekaliga hung around in the early portion of the second set leading early until a Bravo ace gave Osceola its rst lead of the set at 12-11. The Kowboys would then go on a 6-1 run to extend the lead to 1812 before cruising to the second set win.
The third set was tied at 3-3 before the Kowboys went on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 10-3. From there, they put their foot on the gas, extending the lead to 15-6 and eventually 2010 before ending the match on a 5-1 run.
In addition to the play of Taylor and Palmi, the Kowboys got three kills and three blocks from Ahnika Johnston and four aces from Eimy Negron.
“I thought we came in well prepared tonight. We were aggressive in our serving game and everyone was on point tonight. From watching film, we had a pretty good idea of where we should attack them and we were able to execute that plan,” Coach Palmi said.
Junior outside hitter Danna Aquilera led the Tigers with seven kills. Tigers (3-5) Coach Eric Capestany said his team knew it’d face a test Monday.
“We have some young players that are trying to play roles they just are not used to playing yet,” he said. “But to be honest, we knew Osceola would be stacked this year. They had a lot of returning starters and some very talented new faces.”
He added that the one thing he would like to see from his team is more consistency in the second half of the season. “We have really struggled to finish out games this year. We play even or have the lead in the first half of many games and just have had a hard time closing them out,” he said.
It was the first game of a very busy week for the Lady Kowboys, with home games this week against Cypress Creek (Tuesday) and Boone (tonight) with a Wednesday away game sandwiched in at West Orange (Wednesday).
After playing at St. Cloud (3-3, with all wins coming against county opponents) tonight and Liberty (1-6) Tuesday, Tohopekaliga will play a rematch at Osceola on Sept. 21 and the teams could meet again in the Orange Belt Conference Tournament (Oct. 3-6).
