OHS Coach Carrie Palmi wins 400th career match
A crystal ball was hardly needed to predict how the District 7A-7 volleyball championship was going to go this week. It came as no surprise when the Lady Kowboys knocked off St. Cloud (25-13, 25-18, 25-11) in Wednesday’s semifinal and followed it up with a convincing victory over Harmony (25-9, 25-14, 25-11) Thursday to claim their third consecutive district title and their seventh in the last eight years.
Now in her 20th year, it was also a milestone win for Osceola coach Carrie Palmi who won her 400th match.
“For me it’s not really a personal achievement, but rather a tribute to all the great players, assistant coaches, managers and support staff I have had the privilege to work with over the last two decades,” Palmi said. “They are the ones who deserve all the credit for the wins and I just appreciate and thank them for making this job so enjoyable.”
The 400th was never really in doubt Thursday, as Osceola used a combination of hard serves and a strong attack to dominate from the beginning. Andrea Rodriguez served up three of Osceola’s seven aces in the first set and Cate Palmi and Brooklyn Sippio each had four kills as the Lady Kowboys jumped out to a big lead early and cruised to the easy first set win.
Harmony did show some life in the second set and led briefly, but with the score tied 9-9 Osceola went on a 10-2 run and eventually took the second set by 11.
The third set was an absolute clinic. Jordin Southall had six kills and an ace, Palmi and Sophie Spivey added three kills and two aces each, and Sippio had three spikes as Osceola won going away. For the match, Palmi had 13 kills and three service aces, Southall added 11 kills and three aces and Rodriguez posted eight aces on the night.
“After the hurricane wiped out a couple of matches last week, I wasn’t sure how we were going to respond tonight,” Carrie Palmi said. “But I could tell in warm-ups are kids were psyched and ready to play and I think we are in good place heading into regionals.”
As the top-seed in Region 2 and currently ranked fifth overall in Class 7A, Osceola (21-4) will now have home court advantage for as long as they keep winning through regionals. Their top 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). It will be formally announced later this week, but the regional opener will most likely be against Windermere, the projected No. 8 seed. Regardless of the opponent, Osceola will be at home next Wednesday (Oct. 24) at 7 p.m.
“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,” 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 No. 2 ranked team in the entire state) which is something we were not able to accomplish. If Windermere is the eighth seed and our opponent, we can’t take them lightly – they are also a really solid team. Regionals are going to be highly competitive and should provide some great volleyball for the fans to watch.”
Osceola defeated Windermere in three hard-fought sets earlier this year, 26-24, 25-17, 25-19.
Despite the loss, Harmony (13-7) is projected to earn one of four regional at-large bids when they are announced this weekend and will play on the road next Wednesday.
