Signing season in swing
With a top eight finish in regionals, the Tohopekaliga boys cross country team qualified for the FHSAA Class 4A state championship meet in Tallahassee last Friday. Tohopekaliga posted counting times by Jared Lopez (17:49.8), Cameron Ford (17:54.6), Nick Boone (18:04.6), and Darwin Vega (18:17). Joaquin Francis (18:21); with the Tigers posting a 32nd place finish. Jeremy Delgado and Anthony Allen also competed for the Tigers, whose successful season included an Orange Belt Conference (OBC) championship and a fourth-place finish in districts.
Harmony junior Lailana Decker qualified for the FHSAA 4A State Girls Championship as an individual at-large selection. She had an outstanding meet, finishing 69th overall of the more than 230 runners in the 5K race in a time of 20:28. Decker was the OBC girls’ champion, finished third in districts and 8th in regionals.
Will Sutphen signs with Buckeyes volleyball program. The November signing period has come and several Osceola County students have announced what colleges they will be continuing their athletic careers at.
Will Sutphen, a 6-5 senior from St. Cloud High, has signed with Ohio State – a perennial Division-I top 20 team. Sutphen put together two outstanding seasons with the Bulldogs, leading the team in kills as a senior with 230. He was among the team leaders the last two years, recording 55 aces, 100 total blocks and 331 digs to go with his 429 kills.
Gateway’s Malayna Stevenson, who averaged more than 19 points per game in helping the Panthers reach the FHSAA Class 5A State Semifinals last year, will continue her basketball career at the University of Tampa.
Osceola announced several signings, including senior shortstop Nick Palmi, who will play baseball at Central Florida College and senior Samantha Gomez, who will play volleyball at Webber International.
Palmi was an All-OBC selection last year and has one more season this spring; Gomez had 37 digs this season in helping the Lady Kowboys to a regional final.
Harmony softball senior Natalie Booth, who hit .484 as a sophomore before missing most of last season with an injury, signed with Lake Forest College (Illinois).
Palmer Out of at Celebration. Celebration will be looking for its third head football coach in four years as the school’s administration told Jeremy Palmer he would not be returning for a third year following a 1-9 season in 2023. Palmer took over the program in 2022, after Rich Pringle posted a 7-4 season and left to become the head coach at Lake Gibson in Polk County. That was one of just a handful of winning seasons in school history.
Palmer was unable to duplicate the team’s one-year success under Pringle but was faced with a multiple of challenges – including taking over a program that has had very limited success in the school’s history with only one bowl win, no playoff appearances and just a couple of winning seasons in the program’s 21-year history.
In an Instagram post, Palmer wrote: “Today is a tough post, last week I was informed that the administration wanted to go a different direction with the football program. I want to thank everyone who has ever coached with me or gave me a chance. To all the players I have coached at CHS, thank you.”
