Greco keys offense, Waechter stifles Seminole in Game 1
Calling off second baseman Hudson Rivera, Jesuit rightfielder Mason Greco closed quickly to corral a fly ball that ended the second inning. With two more hits and a pair of runs scored, sophomore Greco has gotten his varsity career off to a great start.
By Chuck Frye, Senior Staff Writer
TAMPA – With all the options to play baseball in the Tampa Bay area, all the quality options available in an environment that embraces player movement, holding on to talented athletes can be an issue.
Not at Jesuit.
Take Mason Greco, for example, a talented sophomore who, according to Tigers’ head coach Miguel
Menendez, “probably would have started from the get-go at a lot of places around town.”
But with several experienced upperclassmen in front of him, Greco understood the need for patience as part of a high-profile program.
Easy outs were part and parcel of Kaden Waechter, who fielded a tapper by Noah Ritchie (15) and flipped the ball to first baseman Griffin Boesen for an easy first-inning out.
Menendez placed Greco on the junior varsity roster (“Why have him sit on the bench and get maybe 10 at-bats with varsity when he can get 60 at JV?”) but never lost sight of him. He had the sophomore dress for a few late-season games and brought him along for a prestigious tournament at the USA training facility in Cary, N.C.
And when senior slugger Samir Mohammed went down with a season-ending oblique tear in the district championship game, Greco was ready to step up. And boy, did he step up.
The latest example was the Class 4A-Region 3 semifinal opener Friday against Seminole. A couple of junk-ball pitchers kept many of the host Tiger batters off-balance, but not Greco. From the nine-hole, Greco got on base all three times he batted and scored a pair of runs to help topple the Warhawks, 4-0.
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Leading off the third inning of a scoreless battle, Greco powered an opposite-field double to the leftfield fence, aggressively moved to third on a short wild pitch, and scored what would be the game-winner on Cannon Murtagh’s sacrifice fly. He singled in the fifth and walked in the sixth, scoring on Ben Burke’s two-run single as part of a clinching three-run frame.
“I don’t know how many runs we score (Friday) if (Mason) isn’t playing,” Menendez said. “He was in the middle of all of it, it felt like.”
Seminole leftfielder Cole Worley ranged over to the foul line to track down Bryce Besece’s first-inning fly ball.
For Greco, a calm presence all night, it was just another night at the ballpark.
“I feel when I play well, I play free and loose,” Greco explained. “I don’t put any pressure on myself because, at the end of the day, it’s a game. You’ve just got to have fun.”
Greco has certainly seized on his opportunity, getting six hits in his 10 at-bats with a homer, two doubles and a triple.
“I got a chance to play in one game, I played really well, and have continued to play well ever since,” Greco said.
Seminole second baseman Carter Dougherty sees he’s too late to get Mason Greco, who picked up a third-inning double.
That has worked out well for Menendez as he was able to pull Griffin Boesen from the outfield to first base to cover Mohammed’s injury and insert Greco in rightfield to improve the team’s defense.
“(With Mason, Ben Burke in left and Murtagh in center,) I feel like we have three centerfielders out there,” Menendez said.
Take all of that then put Florida State commit Kaden Waechter on the mound, and that makes for a unit that’s hard to beat as Seminole (now 20-9) found out.
Working at a near-perfect pace, senior Kaden Waechter was an imposing presence on the mound, yielding just four Seminole hits while striking out 10.
Waechter (complete-game four-hitter with 10 strikeouts) didn’t allow many scoring opportunities, and when weird bounces in the fourth inning and a dropped third strike in the third opened the door slightly, the senior wasted little time in shutting them down.
“I noticed that my tempo got kind of down (during the season) and that’s something I’ve been working on lately,” Waechter explained. “I wanted to create energy for this team, and once I get in my rhythm, it’s hard for me to get out of it.”
Tiger base runner Mason Greco was dialed in, advancing to third on a third-inning wild pitch that drifted just a few feet away from the Seminole catcher.
“Obviously he’s really talented,” Menendez said of Waechter, who has fanned 64 batters in 47 innings this season, “but that’s as good as I’ve seen him in his career here. He was in command, in control … he was efficient and didn’t give (Seminole) a lot of opportunities.”
Offensively, Jesuit (23-5) registered nine hits with Greco, Burke and Boesen (two hits each) leading the way, with pinch-hitter Jay Kirchner stepping up with an RBI single in the sixth.
Seminole base runner Hayden Winkle tries to avoid Bryce Besece’s tag but the junior third baseman gets his glove down just in time for a big fourth-inning caught stealing.
With a quick 11 a.m. turnaround Saturday morning, Wilson Andersen (8-2 record, 2.07 ERA) will take the mound looking to send the Tigers back to the regional final.
“I like how we’re playing now,” Menendez concluded. “It wasn’t always pretty (Friday) but we find a way. It’s the playoffs, you’ve just got to find a way to win.”
Jesuit lines up for a pre-game prayer.
⚾ Class 4A – Region 3 Semifinal ⚾
Jesuit 4
Seminole 0
S 000|000|0 – |0|4|1
J 001|003|x – |4|9|0
W – Waechter (5-2); L – Walker
2B – Burke, Greco (J). Records – S (20-9); J (23-5).
⚾
Warhawks lefty reliever Matthew Walker was effective keeping Jesuit’s offense off-balance, working 3 2/3 innings and allowing just one earned run on five hits.
⚾
After forcing out Noah Ritchie (15) at second, Tigers shortstop Wilson Andersen flips the ball to first to complete a sixth-inning double play.
⚾
Jesuit sub Jay Kirchner (left) greets Mason Greco as the pair scored important sixth-inning insurance runs via a Ben Burke double to extend the Tigers’ lead.
⚾
A vivid full moon shines behind Kaden Waechter as the senior closes out his complete-game four-hit playoff victory over Seminole.
