About HBA

In its third decade of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in partnership with ESPN RISE Magazine, named Sarah Palmer as its 2008-2009 Gatorade Hawaii Volleyball Player of the Year.  The announcement was made from Chicago on December 16.

Palmer is the first Gatorade Hawaii Volleyball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hawaii Baptist Academy.  HBA’s Lauren Ho also received Gatorade Hawaii Player of the Year recognition for track and field in 2004-2005.

The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court, distiguishes Palmer as Hawaii's best high school volleyball player.  Palmer is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Volleyball Player of the Year award to be announced in mid-December.

The 5-foot-11 junior outside hitter recorded 217 kills and 119 digs this season for the Eagles (19-2), leading them to their second consecutive Division II state title.  A two-time Most Outstanding Player of the Division II state tournament, she amassed 34 kills and 17 digs in the title-clinching match against Word of Life Academy.  Palmer tallied 62 kills, 30 digs, nine blocks and three service aces during the 2008 postseason.  She is a two-time Interscholasic League of Honolulu (ILH) Division II First Team All-Star and was selected to the 15 National All-Tournament Team at the 2008 USA Volleyball Junior Olympic Girls' Volleyball Championships.

Palmer has maintained a 3.44 GPA in the classroom.  She has also participated in clean-up efforts at Ala Moana Beach Park and has served as a local youth volleyball coach and worked as a volunteer at an area preschool.  She has verbally committed to a volleyball scholarship at the Unversity of Texas in the fall of 2010.

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field.  The selection process is administered by ESPN RISE Magazine, wihich works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.

Palmer joins three-time Gatorade Hawaii Volleyball Player of the Year Kanani Herring (2007-08, 2006-07 & 2005-06, Kamehameha Schools-Kapalama) among the state's list of former award winners.