Baseball: Region Champions

The Jesuit High School baseball team advanced to the State Tournament with a 10-0 win over Dunnellon on Wednesday (May 22) in the Region Final.

The Tigers will make their 21st appearance in a State Semifinal and their second under 5th-year head coach Miguel Menendez. Jesuit (25-5) faces Miami Springs (27-1) on Friday, May 31 at 1:00pm in Fort Myers (Hammond Stadium at the CenturyLink Sports Complex), with the State Championship game scheduled for Saturday, June 1 at 4:00pm. The Tigers will be gunning for their 5th State Championship and first since 2014. Jesuit last advanced to State two years ago, reaching the 2017 State Championship game before succumbing to Southwest Ranches Archbishop McCarthy.

Wednesday at a packed Hyer Family Park, the stellar pitching of Camden Minacci '20 (11-1, 0.95 ERA) timely hitting, and a few Dunnellon (24-7) errors allowed the Tigers to cruise to victory. Minacci threw four scoreless innings and Josh Mallitz '20 hurled the 5th inning to complete the shutout.

Jesuit scored in every inning and led 5-0 entering the bottom of the 5th when big hits by Andrew Kynes '19, Ethan Valdez '19, and Joe Casale '20 led to the 5-run stanza that ended things early via the 10-run rule. 

Minacci has been stellar throughout the District and Region playoffs, throwing 13 shutout innings over four appearances, most notably three critical near-perfect innings of relief in Jesuit's come-from-behind 6-5 win over Jefferson in the Region Semifinal.

That game will go down as one of the most dramatic triumphs in Jesuit sports annals. Minacci entered the game with Jesuit trailing 5-3 and Jefferson runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs in the 5th inning. The Tigers still trailed 5-4 with two outs in the bottom of the 7th inning and two strikes on Cole Russo '21 before Russo bombed one high off the fence to score the tying and winning runs and set off an epic celebration.  

See below a photo slideshow from the Region Semifinal win over Jefferson. For numerous photos from the Region Final win Wednesday over Dunnellon, go to the school's main Facebook page, Jesuit High School of Tampa. Additional Jesuit baseball photos and videos are available at the school's baseball Facebook page, Jesuit High School Baseball - Tampa.