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'Hurricane Season' Still Going Strong In Palm Harbor

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: November 8, 2008

PALM HARBOR - One to-do list task down, three to go.

That seems to be the mentality of this year's Palm Harbor University High School volleyball team in the midst of regional tournament play.

"Our preseason goals are always to win districts and go to regions, win regions and then go to states," outside hitter Cassie Roy said after the Hurricanes' 3-0 regional quarterfinal victory over Leto High on Wednesday night.

The hard-hitting junior stopped short of actually adding winning the state title but with aspirations set so high, desiring to seal the deal inherently comes with the territory.

PHU (24-3) crossed item No. 1 off its agenda last week by beating out rival East Lake High for the school's first district title as a Class 5A-District 9 program. It also marked the first crown won while under Coach Tara Kuk's six-year direction.

"Everybody's goal is to win the district and that's been mine every year since I've been coaching here," Kuk said. "It was nice to finally have those goals put into motion."

With that said and done and a regional quarterfinal win to boot - another Kuk first - the mission of accomplishing objective No. 2 will be at hand Tuesday night when PHU travels to defending back-to-back state champion Plant High's gymnasium in South Tampa.

While the Panthers (25-3) have garnered much hype throughout the season, both locally and nationally, Roy said the Hurricanes will be a confident bunch walking into Plant's back yard.

"(Districts) were the best matches of our entire season, we definitely showed everyone that we're a team to beat," Roy said. "We feel like we're unstoppable right now."

While acknowledging the lavish accolades bestowed upon Plant this season, she said those are also reasons why she and the Hurricanes want to take them on.

"We played them my freshman year, we had to go on the road and we definitely didn't do our best," Roy said of PHU's 2006 defeat to Plant. "But this is the year that we can definitely beat them. We have the talent."

Much of that talent comes from the array of powerful weapons Kuk has on the court, both offensively and defensively. Roy, Morgan Klosterlitz, Allyson Henning and Hannah Smith are all part of a frontline Kuk calls the best she's had while at PHU.

Klosterlitz and Henning both stand more than 6 feet tall in the middle and can take over games by virtue of their defensive prowess alone. On the outside, Roy is able to similarly affect matches with an authoritative swing that has had 235 balls hitting the floor this season.

Plant will try to counter PHU's net play with attackers Danielle Erb, Ariel Ley and Maddie Martin and blockers Leah Jordan and Jordan Dickie.

"We're trying to play at a really high level right now so that when we play at Plant, we'll go into it on top of things," sophomore outside hitter Chelsea King said, adding that she feels the team's in-game mentally has improved exponentially with each passing match.

The mentality and ability of this PHU squad will assuredly be put to task Tuesday night. If the Hurricanes play the out-of-their-minds type ball like they did during districts, this Plant match may be one for the ages of Tampa area prep volleyball.

And perhaps another goal crossed off their list as well.

Eric Horchy can be reached at 727-815-1071 or ehorchy@suncoastnews.com.

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