By Marshall Tempest
Reporter
Editor’s Note: Thursday’s game against Atlantic Coast will start at 7 p.m., after The Apopka Chief’s print deadline. Look online at theapopkachief.com and in next week’s print edition for a full recap.
After falling to the Lake Brantley Patriots in the 7A District 3 Championship, the Blue Darters softball team prepared this week for the first round of the state championship tournament. Apopka was awarded the five-seed in the 7A FHSAA Softball State Championship, and the team are slated to face the four-seed Atlantic Coast Thursday evening in Jacksonville.
The Blue Darters will be in the Region One bracket in the state championship tournament. Joining them in their region will be Lake Brantley as the one-seed, Hagerty as the two, Spruce Creek (Port Orange) as the three, Atlantic Coast (Jacksonville) as the four, Creekside (St. Johns) as the seventh, and finally Seminole (Sanford) as the eighth seed.
In the first round, Apopka will face the four-seed, the Atlantic Coast Stingrays. As the higher-seeded team, the Stingrays get home-field advantage.
The Stingrays came into the state tournament with a 22-5 record, ranked 54th in the state, and were on a four-game winning streak. The Blue Darters went into the tournament with a 21-5 record, ranked 65th in the state, and are coming off a district title game loss.
On paper, Apopka wins this matchup as the team is by far the stronger offense. The Blue Darters have scored 291 runs this year in 26 games, an average of 11.19 runs per game. The Stingrays have scored 184 runs this year in 27 games, an average of 6.81 runs per game.
The most important thing in this matchup for the Blue Darters will not be their ability to score more than the Stingrays – but their ability to hold the Stingrays at bay.
Head coach Mike MacWithey said the defensive errors and miscues have been the bane of their season. He highlighted that a handful of errors have been involved in all five of the team’s losses this year, including Eustis (14-10), Lake Brantley (5-1, 9-8), Deltona (5-4) and Horizon (7-5).
These errors are uncharacteristic for the Blue Darters this season, as they have a .930 fielding percentage. In their losses, Apopka has stacked up 17 of its 47 total errors this season.
That is 36.17% of its errors in just 19.23% of its games. Apopka averages 1.8 errors a game, but in its losses, it is averaging 3.4.
Apopka gave up four errors in its most recent loss to Lake Brantley in the district championship, leading to three unearned runs. MacWithey said some of those errors were a result of being distracted by outside forces while on the field. He said drilling on defense has been a focus for the Blue Darters this week.
In the game against the Patriots, the Lake Brantley dugout was loud and proud while Patriots were at the plate. Not only that, but their stands were chirping the Apopka players, too. The Blue Darters let it get to them.
MacWithey said that one of the biggest things he talked about with the girls was why teams are loud while they are on offense. He said they didn’t really understand it until he explained it.
“Teams are going to be noisy when they’re on offense,” MacWithey said. “But, if they’re on offense, where are we? We’re on defense. So, the problem is not that their team out-cheers or out-noises you. The problem is you let the noise they produce get into your head, and then we fail to do the right things defensively.”
MacWithey said he believes self-inflicted wounds could be the biggest obstacle against Atlantic Coast.
“You look at the stats from Atlantic Coast, and I think we match up well and that we should be better than them,” MacWithey said. “But again, you can’t make miscues. You go back through time, the game against Eustis, we beat them soundly, but we made errors to give up a big inning. In the Lake Brantley game, both of them, we had four errors and gave up fewer earned runs than we earned. So we should have won those games.”
Another big thing MacWithey focused on this week in practice was pitching. In the loss to Lake Brantley, Apopka was up 8-1 headed into the bottom of the fifth inning. In the bottom of the fifth, MacWithey sent in Mia Aeschilman to relieve the starting pitcher, Sydney Bartkin.
Aeschilman gave up two earned runs in an inning. In the bottom of the sixth, MacWithey sent in Ava Millspaugh to relieve Aeschilman, but Millspaugh let up four earned runs in two innings. After those three innings, Apopka trailed 9-8.
MacWithey said it is imperative that the pitching staff learn how to protect the lead when they are ahead late in the game. Heading into the bottom of the sixth, Apopka was still up, but only by five after Brantley’s two-run inning in the bottom of the fifth.
MacWithey had a serious conversation with his pitchers at that point.
“Understand that we’re managing the game here,” MacWithey said. “We’re ahead by five, and we only need six outs. What does that mean? I told them what that means. It means we don’t want to walk people or put anyone on base for free. What I think they sometimes hear is, ‘Well, I’m going to throw batting practice down the middle of the plate.’ And, you know, that’s what we did.”
This week, the Apopka pitching staff will focus on pitching low and in the zone while not falling behind in the count. MacWithey told his pitchers that he doesn’t always need an edge strike.
What he does need is for them to keep the ball below the batter’s waist. That way, even if they hit it hard, they most likely won’t send it over the fence. Pitching low and in the zone was their focus at practice.
“In certain situations, you don’t want to get squeezed by going corner, corner, corner and then you’re behind in the count,” MacWithey said. “You want to go fatter early, get ahead in the count, and then nibble. And you have to know where you don’t want to go. It’s not where you want to go. You have to know where you don’t want to go. We don’t want to go up and middle to any good hitter, especially on a good team.”
