Valiant St. Cloud takes top-seed Freedom to the brink in 6A-7 another five-setter
St. Cloud's Monica Gallagher (9) and Andrea Carradero (10) go up to block Freedom's Valeria Talavera's hit attempt in Thursday's District 6A-7 championship match. (Photo/Taylor McFee)
Leah Nieves posted three aces and two kills and freshman Maddy Sippio delivered three kills in the fifth and deciding set as Osceola (21-6) claimed the District 5A-6 championship with a come-from-behind win over Gateway (20-3).
The win, Osceola’s fifth straight district championship and eighth win in a row, most likely insures the top seed in Region 2 seed for the Lady Kowboys when state playoff action starts next week. Based on their 20-win season and high regional ranking coming into the contest, the Panthers should receive one of four at-large berths when the field is announced.
Meanwhile in Orlando, St. Cloud also played for a title in five sets. The Bulldogs (19-8) were within two points of claiming the 6A-7 at top seeded Freedom, but the Patriots won eight of the match’s last nine points to rally for the first girls volleyball title in the school’s 24-year history.
While Freedom (21-6) moves on, St. Cloud’s season likely ends; brackets for Wednesday’s regional quarterfinals will be announced Saturday.
Led by nine kills by senior captain Brooklyn Sippio, Osceola cruised to a relatively easy 25-21 win in the first set. The Lady Kowboys led by as many as seven in the set before a late Panther rally closed the gap to 21-19. Still, Osceola managed to close on a 4-2 run.
Momentum would swing to Gateway over the next two games.
Sharp serving by the Panthers and some sloppy ball handling by Osceola, led to back-to-back set wins by Gateway. Although Osceola had more combined kills in the two sets, numerous long returns and ball handling errors hurt as the Kowboys never led in either game. Freshman Anaya Reyes had six kills and an ace in the two games to lead Gateway offensively.
“It was disappointing to fall behind but I think a lot of it has to do with the inexperience of our team,” Osceola coach Carrie Palmi said. “Gateway played much cleaner than we did in both the second and third sets and deserved those wins.”
The Sippio sisters wasted little time on getting Osceola back on track in the fourth set. Maddy Sippio had six kills, a block at the net and an ace; while Brooklyn added four kills and two aces, as Osceola jumped out to a 15-5 lead and cruised home to knot the match at two sets each.
Gateway could do little right and Osceola little wrong in the decisive set.
Nieves third ace of set made it 8-2; while the Panthers could not string together two consecutive points.
“When you get to the ‘Race to 15’ in a fifth set, it’s imperative you start off strong because there’s little time to catch up if you fall behind. We rode the momentum of the fourth set into the fifth and that was the difference,” Palmi added.
For the match, Brooklyn Sippio had 24 kills, 2 blocks at the net for points and an ace. Maddy Sippio added 18 kills and five aces; and Nieves had 17 kills and six aces.
Reyes led Gateway with 15 kills and an ace. Sofia Brillon Collazo had seven kills and an ace; while Gabriella Alvarez Herrera added six kills and four aces.
Led by seniors Tessa Rojas (15 kills) and Andrea Carradero (10 kills, 5 blocks), St. Cloud stormed to a 19-10 lead and 25-17 win in the first set. Featuring a balanced attack that saw six different Patriots play on the front line, Freedom took the second (25-20) and third (25-21) sets.
St. Cloud answered by never trailing in the third set and scoring a 25-17 win, forcing their own ‘Race to 15’. Neither side led by more than one until Monica Gallagher’s block made it 8-6, and behind Roajs’ and Carradero’s hitting and blocking the Bulldogs won three of the next four points to make it 12-7.
But while Coach Bill O’Boyle acknowledged a series of hitting errors and mistakes let Freedom back in the game and complete a winning rally, he said he was proud of his team for even forcing a fifth set.
“If we’d played this match in August or September, I think we’d have been on the ride home instead of in a fifth set,” he said. “They showed real fight to come back into this match, but I know our six seniors (Rojas, Carradero, setter Abigail Rivas, liberos Madysin Mailender and Samantha Fernandez, hitter Jairyliz Aponte)
Freedom Coach Ettie Singleton, the former longtime St. Cloud coach (2010-24), acknowledged that the Bulldogs’ scrappiness was familiar.
“We had to play a tough match, too,” she said. “Our girls had to fight, just like (St. Cloud) did.”
