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State baseball: Jesuit’s go-to guy against a stacked slate? Camden Minacci

The junior ace, who puts plenty of pace on his pitches, has faced some of the best teams Florida and the nation have to offer.
 
Jesuit junior Camden Minacci is 11-1 with a 0.95 ERA this season. (SCOTT PURKS | Special to the Times)
Jesuit junior Camden Minacci is 11-1 with a 0.95 ERA this season. (SCOTT PURKS | Special to the Times)
Published May 30, 2019|Updated May 31, 2019

TAMPA — Undeterred by injuries, though almost detoured completely off the path by rival Jefferson High, Jesuit is back in the state baseball tournament.

The Tigers, 25-5 and top ranked in Class 6A by MaxPreps, find themselves paired against the gaudy offense of Miami Springs for a 1 p.m. semifinal Friday in Fort Myers. Jesuit has prevailed past the type of injury that might have derailed others’ seasons when top hitter/catcher/captain Bennett Lee broke several fingers in a non-baseball incident five games back, ending his year.

And circuitously, the Tigers have overcome an injury to an eighth-grader trying to play basketball.

That would be Camden Minacci, now a junior and the ace Jesuit starts Friday. If not for a horrific broken forearm sustained years earlier playing hoops, he would almost certainly not be on the mound in such a spot.

“That injury set the stage for all this. Before that, I was not a very good baseball player, let alone a very good pitcher,” Minacci said. “But once that happened, I knew that I could either stop playing, or try and make something out of it because I’d have plenty of time to work. And I decided to do the latter. I truly learned what had work is, and I’ve reaped the benefits.”

Related: RELATED: Jesuit knocks out defending state champ Jefferson

His basketball career done (“I was the backup power forward anyway”), Minacci focused on rehab, which revealed itself in increased velocity, to touching 90 mph as a sophomore. Naturally that drew the attention of college scouts, and last summer Minacci committed to Wake Forest.

That was after a season where he was among a handful of Tigers who logged in the 15- to 20-inning range, well behind established senior leader Jack Anderson. And that was after not making the JV team as a ninth grader, settling into the freshman squad before making his first big jump.

“He went straight to varsity, a huge jump to the fall of his sophomore year. It was like ‘Whoa’ just with his velocity,” said Jesuit coach Miguel Menendez. “Things started to click in. You could see that he was tall, lanky, just needed to get stronger. You could see that it was coming, but I’d be a liar if I told you I thought it would happen that quickly.”

Thrust into top duty this season, Minacci (6-foot-3, 175 pounds) has been tremendous, posting an 11-1 record with a 0.95 ERA in 58.2 innings pitched. He’s been the winning pitcher in Jesuit’s past four games.

The numbers are marvelous, but made even more so considering the schedule Menendez put out for his squad, difficulty factor unreal. The Florida portion alone would be enough, with wins against 7A semifinalist Venice, an early-slate slew of playoff teams from the Miami area (Westminster Christian, Pace, North Broward Prep) and Gulf Coast.

Related: RELATED: A by-the-book approach (literally) helps Jesuit’s focus

To that, add a Minacci one-hit victory (2-1) over Parkview, which happens to have just completed a state championship in Georgia and is ranked seventh in the nation. The Tigers also topped Pace Academy, an Atlanta school that was the state runnerup in a smaller classification, and lost to Cleveland St. Ignatius, still going in the Ohio playoffs.

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“It was challenging. We did that on purpose,” said Menendez, whose 2017 squad was a state runnerup. “No. 1, we felt like we had a group that could handle the schedule we were going to throw at them, but we also felt like we had the talent to be where we are this time of year, and we wanted our guys to be prepared.”

His plan materialized beautifully, even the losses having the desired effect. Jesuit was on the wrong side of lopsided outcomes to Calvary Christian (last week’s Class 4A state champ) and IMG (No. 2 nationally).

“We embrace how hard it is. I’d rather play a schedule where we lose five, six games instead of playing teams not 30 minute outside our area and going undefeated,” Minacci said. “...Coach has said plenty of times, ‘This is going to prepare us for these better teams.’”

Like Miami Springs, which is hitting .413 as a team with their top eight regulars all above .300, and five above .400.

Related: RELATED: Jesuit gets a nice breather before heading to state

While the regular season certainly has Jesuit prepared for the Golden Hawks, it took some serious region playoff work to get past defending state champ Jefferson. The Dragons led at Jesuit 5-3 with no one on and one out in the bottom of the seventh.

“We were kind of stunned when we went down two, but we weren’t done,” said Minacci. “Nobody was taking their cleats off. We were going to play this until the very last pitch. We weren’t done. How can we be done?”

He helped provide the answer, having only thrown 37 pitches in the 10-0 region quarterfinal win against Wesley Chapel. After Jefferson had gone ahead 5-3 in the fifth inning, pitch count rules allowed Minacci to come in and keep them scoreless the remainder. Jefferson, meanwhile, had burned through its top pitchers, and Jesuit won it on sophomore Cole Russo’s dramatic two-run double.

“It’s a relief, honestly, knowing that we have our best pitcher going (Friday),” junior rightfielder Joe Casale said. “I have 100 percent confidence that he’s better than almost every pitcher we have to go up against. I’m confident that he’s going to keep it a close games, and we’re going to score runs against Miami Springs. I feel like it’s going to be a dogfight, but we’re going to pull through.”

State baseball

At Hammond Stadium, Fort Myers. Admission is $9 per day (advance) or $12 (day of); parking is $10.

Class 8A final: Strawberry Crest vs. Plant City, 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Class 6A semifinal: Lynn Haven Mosley vs. Dunedin, 10 a.m. Friday

Class 6A semifinal: Jesuit vs. Miami Springs, 1 p.m. Friday

Class 7A semifinal: Doral Academy vs. Leto, 7 p.m. Friday