Jesuit Adds Another Title With 4A State Championship

The Tigers proudly wave their team flag to celebrate winning the Class 4A state championship on Tuesday.

The Jesuit Tigers are no strangers to the big stage of the FHSAA Final Four tournament. In their fifth straight season competing in the state tournament at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, the Tigers swept their way through the bracket to claim another state title.

After holding on for a gritty, 5-2 win over the Clay Blue Devils in Monday’s state semifinal, Jesuit completed the journey with a dominant performance in Tuesday’s finale. The Tigers jumped ahead right away and never looked back for a 9-0 win over the Bishop Moore Hornets, to earn the Class 4A state championship.

“We talked about it when we were coming down here, and we felt like last year we let an opportunity slip away to get to the championship game,” Tigers Manager Miguel Menendez said. “We didn’t want that to happen again, and we were one of the last teams playing this year in Florida. What more could you ask for? I’m really happy with the way we played. We found ways, and we did a really good job of just playing the game of baseball.”

Jesuit earned its eighth overall state title, which includes three during this most recent five-year stretch. The program has enjoyed national recognition, with a massive college pipeline that routinely sees most of its players graduate on to a college playing career, as well as those special ones that reach the Major Leagues. Now Jesuit is also inching up the ladder as one of the most successful programs in Florida state history.

With so much experience on the roster and also in playing on the grand stage of the state Final Four, the Tigers (28-6) had plenty of information to build a game plan around. They made all the right adjustments in their preparations, and the results spoke for themselves.

Jesuit did its best to simulate the environment the team would compete in, in preparation for the real thing. The Tigers practiced at the times that their games would be played to get used to those specific climate conditions, and they tried to mimic those things as a dress rehearsal before the final performance.

“It is a little different than how we do our pre-game routine, but those are things that we had to adjust for,” Menendez said.

With so many veterans on the team that were hungry to cement their legacy into the program history, the players all bought in to do whatever was asked of them and whatever it took.

“Whatever it is that we have to do to help this team win a state championship and get another dogpile, we’re going to go out and do it,” senior Kaden Waechter said.

After warming up twice but never getting the ball in each of the past two seasons, Waechter finally enjoyed his chance to pitch on the mound at Hammond Stadium in the semifinal. He responded with a complete-game quality start that advanced his club into the title game. Waechter allowed just three hits and one earned run, while striking out nine in the win over Clay.

On Tuesday it was senior Wilson Anderson getting the call for his second career start in the state championship. Making his 29th and final start of his four-year high school career, Anderson went out a champion. He piled up 12 strikeouts on exactly 100 pitches, holding the Hornets (30-3) to just one hit and two walks, while also hitting one batter. Anderson left to a curtain call after recording one out in the top of the seventh.

“It’s really a dream come true,” Wilson Anderson said of the chance to start in the biggest game of Jesuit’s season.

Left-hander Ben Burke came on in relief and recorded the final two outs to close out the victory. Despite the huge deficit, Bishop Moore refused to go quietly. Hayden Ramos greeted Burke by lining a base hit over the infield defense and into right field, and then Nick Wolsonovich reached on an error to keep the Hornets’ slim hope still alive.

But Burke did not flinch. He struck out the next batter, and then induced a grounder back to the mound for a 1-3 putout that ended the contest and started the championship celebration.

“We talk about it all the time that those last three outs are the hardest ones to get,” Menendez said.

For Bishop Moore, the first three outs proved to be just as hard to get. The first four Tiger hitters all reached base in the bottom of the first to supply all the runs they ultimately needed. Burke walked and Anderson was hit by a pitch, and then Cannon Murtagh loaded up the bases with a bunt single to third base.

Two runs quickly followed. Griffin Boesen lined an RBI single to left and Bryce Besece delivered a sac-fly RBI to left that allowed courtesy-runner Tyler Trombley to cross the plate.

Jesuit piled more fuel into the bonfire by adding three more runs in the second. Mason Greco walked and Burke followed with a single to center that put runners on the corners. Anderson then dropped down a squeeze bunt that allowed Greco to score, and Boesen delivered a two-RBI single to right that made it a 5-0 advantage.

The plan going into the game was to be selective and patient in an effort to drive up the pitch count for a Bishop Moore pitching staff that was coming off an 11-inning effort in its 1-0 state semifinal win to reach the finale. But Coach Menendez also encouraged his guys to stay true to who they are and what got them this far.

“We are an aggressive team and we do not take a lot of pitches,” Menendez said. “We wanted to play within our game and not change our style of offense. If they get first-pitch fastballs and they are ready to hit, that is what they are going to do. That is who we are. I thought we did a really good job of that.”

The Tigers added another run in the fourth, and then capped things off with a three-run sixth inning that had the final run ninety feet away from a 10-run lead that would have triggered the mercy rule and ended the contest.

With such a commanding lead, the final result became inevitable. Although the title drought was a mere three seasons long, and even though the trophy adds to an already crowded display case, it never gets old winning it all. Menendez pointed out that most of the starters were previously bench players and role players on that last title team, and a good many of the guys on this roster were not even on that team yet.

Over his 20 years of coaching, Menendez has learned how to adjust his coaching with the times. In preparing for the state tournament this season, the team also employed AI tools in its planning.

“It’s amazing what AI does for scouting reports these days. It’s just amazing,” Menendez said. “Coach Tim Nall deals with the AI more than me, so I am letting him deal with it. I have it, and we have some stuff printed out. It was even more beneficial against Bishop Moore, because we haven’t seen those guys. I’m a little more old-school and I trust my eyes. But our guys have grown up with it, and they love that sort of information. So the more of it that we can give them, the better. We use it when we can and just try to be the best prepared.”

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