The Apopka Blue Darters opened the week with a tough road matchup against Olympia on Monday night, falling in straight sets (25-16, 25-18, 25-16). Despite flashes of energy from Apopka, the Titans leaned on their senior duo of setter Madison Wehr and middle blocker Milana Holland to keep momentum on their side all night. 

The Blue Darters came out swinging early in the opening set, with junior middle blocker Madeline Sherrer recording two quick kills and an ace to keep things even at the start. But once Olympia’s sophomore outside hitter Julia Barry stepped to the service line, the tide turned. 

Barry sparked a 5–0 run with a sharp kill to force an Apopka timeout at 16-10, then whipped in back-to-back aces. Wehr kept the Titans’ offense rolling, feeding Holland for multiple kills and helping Olympia pull away for a 25-16 first-set win. 

The Titans carried that momentum into the second set, storming out to an 8–0 lead behind Wehr, who delivered six early assists and an ace. Apopka regrouped out of a timeout and clawed back thanks to junior setter Taylor Cain, who fired off four straight aces to narrow the deficit to 8-6.  

A controversial point reversal at 9-8 shifted momentum back toward Olympia, and the Titans capitalized. Holland and sophomore middle hitter Joelle Evans powered through the middle while the Apopka miscues piled up, stretching the Olympia advantage to 23-16 before closing it out 25-18. 

The third set saw the Blue Darters put together their most competitive stretch of the night, with neither side leading by more than three points through the first 20 rallies. Sherrer and sophomore outside hitter Marie Hughes chipped in kills off perfect sets from Cain to keep things tight at 9-9.  

Just as Apopka looked to push ahead, Olympia returned to its early match form. Wehr orchestrated a 6–1 run by spreading the ball to Holland, junior opposite Mia Douf, and freshman outside Gabrielle Robinson. She closed the match with back-to-back aces, before setting her 20th assist of the night to Holland, for her 10th kill of the night to secure a 25-16 finish and the sweep.  

For Apopka, Cain paced the offense with 8 assists and 5 aces. Sherrer, Daylen Hilliman, and Marie Hughes each tallied 3 kills. Coach Brian Mater noted that while the Blue Darters showed grit, lapses on defense prevented them from gaining traction.  

“Our defense. I mean, we just were not blocking the ball,” Mater said. “We were not earning our own points. Everything that we earned was on mistakes that they had. If you want to beat a team like this when they have good outside and right side hitters and even their middles, you got to put up a block. Our defense was just not on point.” 

On the other side, Olympia’s veteran group shined. Holland finished with 10 kills and an assist. Wehr recorded 20 assists to go with 5 kills and 3 aces, while Douf added 8 kills and 2 blocks. 

Looking ahead, Mater emphasized communication and defensive improvement as the Blue Darters navigate a challenging three-game week. 

“We got to communicate. We got to work on defense,” Mater said. “It’s going to be a long week, you know, we’ve got a lot of matches. Timber Creek’s going to be tough. We got to communicate, get some rest, but be ready to play tomorrow.” 

Apopka (1-2) will try to bounce back quickly with another test tonight at home against the Timber Creek Wolves (0-1). 

Apopka 3, Dr. Phillips 2 (by Marshall Tempest) 

Monday’s loss followed Apopka’s first win of the season on Friday against Dr. Phillips.  

Mater called the win over Dr. Phillips a battle of the errors in which Apopka just got the longer end of the stick.   

“You know, they’d make an error, we’d make an error,” he said. “As I’ve stated many times, it’s tough when you look at the stats and see five or six missed serves. We ended up cleaning it up a little bit towards the end, and we were actually quite a bit ahead at one time, and then we started making more errors again.”  

Apopka defeated the Panthers in a seesaw battle, 24-26, 25-17, 18-25, 25-19 and 15-12.  

The Blue Darters shifted from playing great and capitalizing on the Panthers’ mistakes to not being able to stop their own mistakes at times. In the second set, after going up 5-1, Apopka was behind 11-9 in a blink, with all 11 points for Dr. Phillips coming from Apopka mistakes.   

Mater said the focus at practice in the near future will be on limiting mistakes. The team plans to achieve this by focusing on serving and receiving, as well as passing and blocking at the net.   

Another thing Mater said the team will be focusing on is earning their own points.   

“We’ve got to start earning more of our points instead of allowing the other team to give them to us,” Mater said. “We had a really low earned percentage rating. So, a lot of our points were there because of the mistakes that the other team made. And we need to capitalize on our free balls when they’re sending them over. We’ve got to kill those balls and start earning more of our own points than being given the points.”   

But Mater said he is seeing a difference in the attitude of his team this year. Not only is there a sincere level of trust from his players in the program and the coaching staff, including coach Sarah Egbers, but the girls also have big aspirations for the season.   

He said they are fully invested in games and practice film like they never have before. Mater explained that everything he has been harping on to his team since last year and the off-season is finally starting to show itself.   

“We did some film study last Thursday,” Mater said. “I feel like we were better conditioned. We’ve been doing a lot more conditioning. I noticed that the University girls were a lot more worn out than our girls. So, our conditioning is definitely kicking in.”  

Mater said the trust has been the most significant difference between this year’s team and last year’s. He said that during the games, Egbers takes over as the leading voice as her game knowledge and IQ are elite. As a former player for Apopka who was around during some of the program’s best years, Egbers has seen what it takes to win, and her players listen because of it. 

“The trust level with the entire team and the coaching staff has helped a lot,” Mater said. “They have a bright future for Apopka volleyball.”