{"id":22771,"date":"2025-10-27T20:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/22771\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T20:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:29:07","slug":"usf-recruit-cate-palmi-leads-osceola-into-fhsaa-region-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/22771\/","title":{"rendered":"USF recruit Cate Palmi leads Osceola into FHSAA region final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kissimmee Osceola senior Catherine \u201cCate\u201d Palmi, an All-Area player every year since ninth grade<\/a>, became the Orlando area all-time leader in volleyball kills during regional play last week.<\/p>\n

She smacked 15 kills in a 3-0 quarterfinal win against Harmony to break the record, then added 20 more in a hard-fought semifinal victory vs. Vero Beach.<\/p>\n

Her total is 1,975 going into Wednesday night\u2019s Class 7A Region 2 championship match in Kissimmee.<\/p>\n

With that added to her lengthy list of high school achievements<\/a> Palmi now has her sights set on an even bigger milestone: a state title.<\/p>\n

The Kowboys (25-4), ranked No. 2 in 7A behind reigning state champ Winter Park (28-1), will be home for a Tuesday 7 p.m. region final against Jupiter (21-4). The winner advances to next week\u2019s FHSAA state tournament in Winter Haven. The 7A final four has semifinals on Nov. 6, leading to a Nov. 8 championship game at Polk State College.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely want to make program history,\u201d Palmi said. \u201cWinning state is our main goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In matchups between area teams, Winter Park hosts the 7A-1 final against Hagerty and 2024 Class 3A state champ Lake Highland Prep is home to face a Montverde Academy team the Highlanders lost to in the regular season. Orangewood Christian, No. 1 in 1A, is home against a familiar foe, Trinity Catholic of Ocala. And Oviedo, No. 3 in 6A, travels to the Pensacola area to play No. 1 Gulf Breeze.<\/p>\n

Osceola, coached by Palmi\u2019s mother, Carrie, has a 98-19 record in Cate\u2019s four seasons as an All-Area player. That includes four district titles and two region crowns that led to state semifinal appearances. Along the way Cate surpassed the school kills record set by her big sister Allison, who is now an assistant coach<\/a> at Bucknell University, and the previous area record of 1,951 set by Payton Caffrey<\/a> of Winter Springs, who was the state player of the year as a senior.<\/p>\n

Caffrey went on to be a two-year stalwart at West Virginia before transferring to FSU and becoming the ACC Player of the Year as a junior and All-ACC first teamer as a senior. She also excelled in beach volleyball with a NCAA all-tournament team honor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBreaking a record that a great player had was awesome,\u201d Cate said.<\/p>\n

Palmi ripped 591 kills as a ninth grader and 516 as a sophomore. Her kill counts were 436 last season and 432 this year with teams that have become more balanced with the development of senior standouts Jordin Southall, a Vanderbilt commit who has 291 kills; and Sophia Spivey (265), who committed to USC-Upstate of South Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn practice we\u2019re always super competitive,\u201d Cate said. \u201cAnd we hate to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cate, who committed to USF in 2024, is undersized as an outside hitter at 5-foot-8. But her swing is lethal, She tortures opponents with her jump serve (280 career aces) and is outstanding as a defender (1,063 digs).<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s feisty and is definitely a leader,\u201d coach Palmi said. \u201cShe grew up as a gym rat and knows how to compete. She knows being undersized she\u2019s had to work a lot harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kowboys won the region and lost a scintillating state semifinal by scores of 25-22, 22-25, 26-24, 25-22 last year against Winter Park. Osceola lost another dramatic five-setter<\/a> against the Wildcats three weeks ago. They are on a collision course to meet in the state final this year.<\/p>\n

Winter Park overcomes Kissimmee Osceola to reach 7A girls volleyball final<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are the region final matchups. Admission is $9.<\/p>\n

3A Region 2 (Tuesday)<\/p>\n

No. 2 Montverde (19-5) at No. 1 Lake Highland (22-6), 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Montverde hosted LHP for an Oct. 2 district game and pulled off a 26-24, 27-25, 25-23 victory.<\/p>\n

2A Region 1 (Tuesday)<\/p>\n

No. 2 Trinity Catholic (16-10) at No. 1 Orangewood (25-4), 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

The Rams opened their season with a come-from behind 18-25, 25-22, 16-25, 25-18, 15-9 win at Trinity Catholic. The Celtics knocked Orangewood out in 2024 and were state runners-up.<\/p>\n

7A Region 1 (Wednesday)<\/p>\n

No. 3 Hagerty (20-5) at No. 1 Winter Park (28-1), 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats beat the Huskies 28-26, 25-12, 25-19 in an August regular season match and 25-18, 25-19, 25-15 in district final \u2014 both at Winter Park.<\/p>\n

7A Region 2 (Wednesday)<\/p>\n

No. 2 Jupiter (23-4) at No. 1 Osceola (25-4), 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Jupiter, the second seed in the region, rallied to win against No. 3 Olympia (21-4) by scores of 24-26, 25-19, 25-21, 25-19.<\/p>\n

6A Region 1 (Wednesday)<\/p>\n

No. 2 Oviedo (22-6) at No. 1 Gulf Breeze (26-3), 7 p.m.*<\/p>\n

Oviedo lost region finals in five sets the past two years, including their match at Gulf Breeze in 2024. (*Central Time Zone).<\/p>\n

Winter Park topples Plant for FHSAA 7A girls volleyball state championship<\/a><\/p>\n

Varsity content editor Buddy Collings can be contacted by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kissimmee Osceola senior Catherine \u201cCate\u201d Palmi, an All-Area player every year since ninth grade, became the Orlando area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3745,17610,139,141,140,110],"class_list":["post-22771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-high-school-sports","tag-high-school-volleyball","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}