Jesuit slugs its way to Saladino semifinal win

Jesuit senior Will Burke watches his RBI double in the third inning.

By Jarrett Guthrie, Editor

RUSKIN – Will Burke’s RBI double in the third inning, broke open a tie ball game as Jesuit put up ten runs over the next three innings, cruising to a 12-4 win in Wednesday’s Saladino Gold Division semifinal.

The win marks six-straight by the Tigers (7-2) – the only unbeaten team in the tournament’s top division – and booked Jesuit a spot in the Saladino Championship for the third time in four years.

Jesuit’s Noah Sheffield (2-for-2, two runs, RBI) slides home as Lennard catcher Mikie Locke (2-for-4, RBI) stops a throw-in from the outfield. 

Standing in the way of a fifth Jesuit title in the 43 years of the Saladino Tournament however, will be 813Preps’ Week 3 No. 1 Jefferson, winner of its semifinal, 7-1, against Tampa Catholic, which will be attempting to claim the tourney crown for the third time.

Senior Dean Spoto rounds third on a Vincent DeCarlo two-run single. Spoto singled in a run in the fourth.

Against the Longhorns, No. 3-ranked Jesuit took little time to get things going offensively. Leadoff hitter Vincent DeCarlo took a pitch off the shoulder to give the Tigers a baserunner, Omar Morris – the speed-up runner for the catcher. Morris quickly stole second and rounded third and scored on a the first of Noah Sheffield’s hits. An Antonio Fawcett (2-for-3, double, two runs) single moved Sheffield over, and he would score on an up-the-gut single from Jacob Lozano (2-for-4, double, run).

Jesuit junior Antonio Fawcett speeds down the line on his RBI single.

Burke was a little bit of a tough critic of his team’s previous two wins, with six hits in a 4-3 win against Strawberry Crest, and seven in a 7-4 win over Leto, but was happy to see the Tigers put up hits from nine different players on Wednesday.

“We struggled a little bit the last two games, so just to get (our bats) going was great … it was nice to see in the last few innings we were still getting runners on base,” Burke said. “It’s good to see our offense get rolling.”

More than 80 photos from this one, click here.

The follow-through on Jack Clark’s two-run triple.

Lennard (5-5) showed its underdog grit the entire tournament, battling back after a gut-wrenching loss to open the tournament when Plant City rallied for three runs in the seventh to steal a 4-2 win. Regrouping from the loss to the Raiders, Lennard moved through its next two games behind strong pitching and steady offense to take down two Top 10 teams in Sickles and Gaither to reach the semifinals.

Longhorns third baseman Rowland Ruiz Jr. delivers a strike to catcher Mikie Locke to record a force out at the plate.

The Longhorns got its leadoff batter aboard in each of the first five innings. Lennard strung together three singles in the third inning to tie the game, as first Sebastian Rojas dropped a single into right, then Mattie Counts singled to short and a bad throw allowed Rojas to cross, and lastly RJ Torres lined an RBI single into left.

Junior RJ Torres lines an RBI single into left in the third inning.

From there though, the realities of a four-day tournament set in, as the Longhorns pitching faltered and the Tigers pounced on a carousel of pitching with its mid-innings pile-on. Jack Clark tripled in a pair in the fourth, two errors added two more runs, and before the dust settled DeCarlo sent a ground ball single through the left side to drive in two and a wild pitch put the game out of reach.

Jesuit junior backstop Vincent DeCarlo asks the field umpire about a checked swing. 

The senior DeCarlo was hit in his first two at-bats and hit a ball to the deepest part of the field, only to have it ran down by Counts in center at the wall, but finally broke free with the two-run hit.

“That’s how baseball goes,” he said. “I’ve had some at-bats like that, but at the end of the day you have to wash it out, and get right back to it. Usually, if you hit a ball hard, you’re going to have your hits coming … it’s really just trusting your mechanics and trust what you’ve worked on in the past.”

Vincent DeCarlo wears a pitch to the shoulder in the first.

But that didn’t mean the Longhorns would go quietly. Mikie Locke (2-for-4) singled home a run in the fifth, and Lennard added one more in the sixth with Counts scoring his second run on a Tigers error. Lennard put balls in play throughout, with nine hits and four strikeouts against five different Jesuit pitchers.

Tigers senior Aden Knowles delivers a pitch. Knowles earned his second win of the season, pitching 3 2/3 innings.

Senior Aden Knowles, last season’s Saladino Tournament MVP, picked up the win for the Tigers tossing 3 2/3 innings, allowing two runs and striking out a pair.

Omar Morris beats a path down the third base line scoring Jesuit’s first run of the game.