Jesuit Reclaims The Throne With 5-2 Win In 5A Title Game

The 2024 Class 5A state champion Jesuit Tigers.

The Jesuit Tigers are state champions once again.

Since falling in the title game a season ago, the Tigers have come full circle through some tough, mid-season hurdles to avenge the loss and take the title back from them. In a rematch of last year’s final, Jesuit prevailed 5-2 over the American Heritage Patriots to win the Class 5A state championship, on Saturday afternoon at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers.

“Everybody just bought in at the end,” Jesuit Manager Miguel Melendez said. “It is the senior leadership, and we have 17 seniors. It helps that these guys don’t panic. We have a group of them that have been here for three years, that won a state championship in 2022, and they played in three straight state finals. When you have that experience, they never panicked. They never stopped believing in themselves. They just kept playing and believing.”

That belief having fueled them all the way back to the promised land, the Tigers (26-6) wasted no time in jumping out to the lead in the first inning and never looking back. D.J. Pirela led off with a double to left, advanced to third on a wild pitch and then scored on a sacrifice fly from Cannon Murtagh. Just two batters in and Jesuit already had the lead.

“We’ve been such a better team when we’ve scored first,” Melendez said. “We’ve let teams get ahead of us of late, but when we score first, with our pitching staff, we’re tough to beat. So when D.J. set the tone, you could just see the energy in our dugout was different.”

The Tigers dogpile to celebrate winning the state championship.

That energy carried into the next batters. Noah Sheffield smacked a single to left, and then came racing all the way around the bases to score thanks to an RBI double from Jack Clark.

“Setting the tone just means a lot to me,” Pirela said. “I always hear from the guys that if you can set the table and get us going, we’re all going to get going. Once I got my pitch and I executed and got that double, it was time to get these boys up.”

The boys were up. That offensive momentum continued into the next innings, as Jesuit added another run in the second and two more in the third to open up a 5-0 advantage.

“Every time D.J. gets on base, I want to get on base and trade places with him,” Noah Sheffield said. “I just need to get on base to help my team. Each of the guys on our team are good at doing that and switching places, and when the fire gets started it doesn’t stop.”

With one out in the second, Will Burke and Kaden Waechter had back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners. Pirela then delivered a fly ball very deep to center field, with plenty of distance to allow Burke to tag up and score on the sac-fly RBI.

The first three batters then reached to start off the third. Sheffield walked, Vincent DeCarlo singled past third and Clark also walked to load up the bases. Jacob Lozano supplied a sac-fly RBI on a flyout to right, and courtesy-runner Brody Smith stole home for the Tigers’ final run of the game.

The Tigers accept their championship trophy.

The Patriots (21-11) continued to battle until the end, chipping away for a couple of runs late to keep them in the contest. Christopher Levy led off the top of the fifth with a single past first, advanced to second on a wild pitch and then to third on a ground out from R.J. Machado. Lucas Ramirez then got his team on the scoreboard with an RBI double on a drive deep to the center field wall.

Heritage kept adding pressure to threaten further damage. Sebastian Garavito walked and Andrew Ortiz was hit by a pitch to put two base runners on, prompting a call to the bullpen for Wilson Anderson to relieve starter McCall Biemiller. Anderson was up to task, recording two straight outs to end the threat.

Anderson went the rest of the way for the Tigers. He ran into trouble again in the seventh, but his defense had his back. Ramirez led off with another double, and then Garavito followed with a liner to shallow center. Pirela came charging in, laid out and snared the catch.

“Believe it or not, the whole year I don’t think I got one diving play,” Pirela said. “I love diving plays. I love the energy that comes after it and the moment is so electric. Especially with the timing and how the outcome could have changed, and what could have happened. It was just amazing.”

Ramirez did eventually score. He advanced to third on a ground out from Andrew Ortiz, and Rafael Furcal sent him home with an RBI single. But it was too little, too late, as the next batter flew out to center to end the contest.

From there, the only thing left to do was to celebrate and bask in the accomplishment now achieved. Jesuit adds it seventh state title to the program trophy case, to wrap up another season for the ages.

“At the beginning of the year we talked about that we wanted to win four championships: The Saladino, Districts, Regionals and States. Job done and mission completed,” Melendez said.

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