Four county teams qualify for regional playoffs
Thanks to winning district championships, Harmony and Gateway will host regional quarterfinal matches on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Harmony welcomes Winter Haven in Class 6A, and Gateway will host Fivay in Class 5A.
Harmony (14-9), the top seed and host of the District 6A-10 tournament, captured the title with a 25-20, 19-25, 25-16, 25-17 win over East Ridge Thursday. The Longhorns have now won five straight.
In addition, Tohopekaliga (22-2) and Osceola (20-8) earned at-large berths and play on the road.
Gateway (11-9), the No. 2 seed in the 5A-8 tournament, went on the road and gutted out a thrilling five-set road win over top-seeded Auburndale on Thursday night, 23-25, 25-23, 22-25, 25-15, 15-10.
If Tohopekaliga (22-2) wants to make any noise in the FHSAA post-season, they are going to have to do it on the road after falling in the 7A-5 championship final at home, 26-24, 25-21, 22-25, 25-17 to Lake Nona, the only team to beat the Tiger this season. Those teams met in last year’s district final, with the same result.
The reward? Another rematch with those Lions at Lake Nona Wednesday.
“That’s about what we expected,” THS Coach Eric Capestany said. “If we want to go any far in the playoffs we’ll have to beat teams like Lake Nona.”
Osceola, who the Tigers beat in a rousing five-set 7A-5 semifinal Wednesday, earned an at-large berth and plays at Tampa Steinbrenner on Wednesday. Capestany said that his team’s lack of execution led to the loss, but did not discount the effects of the emotionally-draining five set win over Osceola.
“Not to take anything away from Lake Nona, they were absolutely awesome but the win over Osceola was an emotional roller coaster for us,” he said. “For the first time this season we came out and did not look sharp in warm-ups and that carried over to the match.”
Toho would fall behind early in the first set but kept it close thanks to some big plays by Ariana Warner and Josi Capellán. But with the score tied 24-24, a block attempt by Tehani Liborio sailed out of bounds and Lake Nona served out the game with the two-point win.
“The first game in my mind was critical,” Capestany said. “With crowd we had tonight, a first-set win would have shifted the momentum to us.”
Lake Nona took a 15-8 lead in the second game before the Tigers rallied to force a tie at 20-20. But several return errors by Tohopekaliga and emphatic spike from Gabriella Karman resulted in the Lions going on a 5-1 run to end the set and take a 2-0 lead.
The fourth set was even for most of the game until Toho went on a 5-1 run to grab a 20-15 lead. Lake Nona would rally but the Tigers held on for three-point win. The fourth set was pretty much controlled by Lake Nona. With a 7-1 run they built a 17-12 lead and would cruise to the win.
“Toho is a tough, unorthodox team that is hard to play because of their style,” Lake Nona Head Coach Jake Penaloza said. “Overall, I thought our attack game was pretty good and other than that third set we sort of took their crowd out of the game.”
Capellan led the Tigers with 12 kills, Danna Aguilera had 10. Warner led the team with 24 assists and Nicole Abril had 20 digs.
Tohopekaliga, like Gateway, is looking for its first-ever regional playoff win.
“Right now it doesn’t matter. Whether they send us 80 miles away or five minutes up the road to play Lake Nona again, we’re going to have a chance to play in the regionals and try to advance and that is an exciting opportunity for us,” Capestany said.
