The Blazers Volleyball team travelled over the weekend to Auburndale, Florida, to battle it out with some of the Sunshine State Athletic Associations best as part of their 5A Championship bracket. The 5A championship bracket took in the 5th-8th place teams in the SSAA to battle it out for 5th place in the state. The Blazers began the tournament with a 10-4 record against Seven Rivers Christian (7-11). The Blazers started out strong, putting together a quick lead and holding steady to a 25-18 first set victory and, with the lead, picked apart the Warriors in route to a second set victory of 25-15 and the match victory in the best of three match to head to the 5A Bracket Championship. In the second game of the morning, the Panthers of Bell Creek Academy started strong with a big first set victory before falling in the second set to Faith Christian. In the third set, the Panthers dominated the Lions and punched their own ticket to the bracket championship.

In the 5A Bracket Championship game, the Bell Creek Panthers (13-8) came out strong in the first set and took the 1-0 lead with an 25-18 victory over the Blazers. The Blazers came back with a much better set number 2, leading late in the set before the Panthers ran off six straight points to win the set at 26-24 and put the Blazers within a game of being eliminated in the best of five championship game. But the Blazers weren't done yet. Coach Josh Jordan put together a new plan for the third set, working on putting the Blazers specific strengths up against the strengths of the Panthers in a basketball like strategy. The strategy worked as the Blazers focused on just defending against one Panther hitter and pulled more girls off the net to handle all of the angles. The third set ended up going to the Blazers by a score of 25-22 and the Blazers kept the momentum through the fourth set with a victory of 25-17 to tie the match up. In set five, Senior Izzy Mocherman began the set with an ace, while fellow Senior Roz Abel and Junior Haley Bolton both added kills to make it 3-0. The teams would exchange points to the 4-3 mark before Senior Caitlin Webb dumped a ball over the net for a point and took to the service line. Webb pushed the lead to 7 points, aided by 4 Panther errors and a kill by Sophomore Ryan Donlin, causing Bell Creek to use both of their timeouts during the service run. Roz Abel and Ryan Donlin would both pick up points during their times of service to push it to a 9 point lead before a service error by the Panthers ended the set at 15-5 and the match at 3-2 in favor of the Blazers. The Blazers allowed the Panthers to serve just two points during the final set.

The Blazers played some of their strongest volleyball of the year during the game. They now look towards the FHSAA tournament, which begins during next week's fall break. The Blazers are locked in, with all sporting events for the week being cancelled, to the #2 seed in the FHSAA 1A district 11 bracket. That should set them up against The Classical Academy of Sarasota as they sit in the #3 seed, according to the FHSAA's ranking system. The match-up should take place at Sarasota Christian on Wednesday afternoon. The Blazers defeated the Patriots at TCA 3-0 to kick off the 2024 season and then beat them 3-0 a second time at SCS a month later. It is never easy to beat a team three times, but the Blazers will look to use the momentum from last weekends victories to push through to the district finals. The other half of the bracket will pit the #4 Gulf Coast Heat against the #5 Canterbury Crusaders on Tuesday night, before the winner heads to Kewick Christian on Wednesday for a chance to play in the district championship. The district championship will be played on Thursday at Keswick Christian.