For the first time since 2015 and just the second time in school history, the Osceola Kowboys volleyball team will contend for a regional championship. Osceola earned that honor Saturday with a thrilling five-set win over Jupiter, 25-8, 25-19, 20-25, 18-25, 15-11. The Kowboys (25-4) will host Windermere (11-11) Wednesday at 7 p.m.
“We got off to a great start but momentum in this game is such a fickle thing. We made a couple of mistakes, they made some great plays and next thing we knew it was two games each and we were headed to a fifth set,” Osceola Coach Carrie Palmi said. “Fortunately we tweaked our defense a bit, Kaitlyn (Taylor) got aggressive on her serves and we kept our composure.”
It was nerve-racking fifth set as the teams traded numerous errors, long points, and great plays to battle to a 9-9 tie in the deciding fifth “race to 15” game. A well-placed dink shot by Jupiter’s Trinity Quick, followed by an Osceola spike from Taylor that went long, gave the Warriors an 11-9 lead and forced an Osceola time-out. Coming out of that break, Taylor came up with a big spike to make it 11-10.
Taking over the serve, Taylor would end up serving out the game for Osceola as the Kowboys finished the match by scoring six straight points. The series of plays included two kills by Cate Palmi and two return errors by Jupiter. Taylor would put an exclamation point on the match with an ace to close out the game.
The start of the match was very much like the finish. With Taylor serving, she fired five aces and Cate Palmi has four kills as Osceola rolled to a 9-0 lead and cruised to a 17-point win in the first set. Although Jupiter played better in the second, Osceola would jump out to a 12-7 lead and Warriors could never get closer than three points in the 25-19 win.
But things would change in the third set. Osceola’s offense went cold and Jupiter used a 6-0 run to take a 14-11 lead. From there, the teams battled to a 19-19 stalemate before Jupiter won two long rallies and would take six of the next seven points for the win.
Game four was all Jupiter as they grabbed leads of 5-1, 11-6 and 17-7 in the game before evening the match at two sets each. About the only encouraging sign for the Kowboys in the game came when they rallied with a 9-1 run to cut the deficit to 22-18. But a service error followed by two kills allowed Jupiter to gain back control and win the set.
“I am very thankful we got off to such a great start and won the first two sets,” Carrie Palmi said. “At this point in the season, every team you face is going to be good. Between some outstanding plays they made and some mistakes we made, they were able to get back in the match.”
For the Kowboys, the season-long one-two punch of freshman Cate Palmi and senior Taylor keyed Osceola’s win. Palmi had 27 kills; while Taylor added 11 with seven aces. Sophie Spivey, another freshman, had 12 kills. “We got off to a great start and that certainly was important for us,” Taylor said. “I’m so proud of my teammates that we were able to keep our composure after the fourth set and come back to win.”
Osceola (25-4) becomes the second Kowboys’ team in school history to reach a regional final – matching the 2015 Osceola team that won their first 29 games of the season before falling to Manatee.
