McLaughlin Shooting High

Bishop McLaughlin coach Nick Rodriguez was still all smiles at practice Wednesday following the Hurricanes' 7-6 win at Class 3A Tampa Catholic on Tuesday.

It was the biggest victory in the 2A private-school team's four-year history.

"This is our fourth year of varsity play," Rodriguez said. "Three years ago, our biggest game was Hernando Christian. Every year, we have continued to work and strive for more. All the way from having players play travel ball to having three of our five seniors playing college ball next year. When we put our schedule together this year, with the seniors in mind, we scheduled high."

Bishop McLaughlin (2-1 heading into today's district game at Indian Rocks Christian) will be part of the Jesuit Easter Baseball Tournament, which will be held April 14-17 at Paul Straub Field in Tampa.

Two other area teams - St. Petersburg Catholic and host Jesuit - will participate in the eight-team field. The other five teams: New York's Fordham Prep and St. Francis High, Washington, D.C.'s Gonzaga College High, Tennessee's Knoxville Catholic, and Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Hurricanes will face Knoxville Catholic in the opening round and either Jesuit or St. Thomas Aquinas in the next round.

"Our goal is to continue to earn the respect of the counties," Rodriguez said. "And the more times we can beat a team like Tampa Catholic and play teams like Berkeley and get in the Jesuit tournament, means a lot to me. I've been in the Tampa Bay area my whole life, and those schools have always been good. I want our name mentioned next to theirs, and that's where we want to be."

Along with district opponents Tampa Prep (where Rodriguez was an assistant before joining Bishop McLaughlin), Indian Rocks Christian and Calvary Christian, Rodriguez has a home-and-home with 3A St. Petersburg Catholic, 3A Berkeley Prep and Pinellas County 2A power Northside Christian.

The Hurricanes' home game against St. Pete Catholic on Thursday will be played at Saint Leo University.

"I'm ecstatic about playing at Saint Leo," Rodriguez said. "We play winter ball there. Obviously, being a Catholic institution and us being the closest Catholic high school, we wanted to see if we could fully develop a relationship between the two schools. Eddie Kenny, our athletic director, he was able to make some connections and check with the rules to make sure we were all good and we were able to schedule a game over there."

Bishop McLaughlin suffered its only loss to St. Pete Catholic, 8-4 on Feb. 20.

Rodriguez said 2B Mike Gonzalez has verbally committed to Carson-Newman College in Tennessee and OF Jeff Pope and SS Taylor McGillis also will play college baseball next year.

QUITE A START: Four games, four wins, only five hits allowed and two no-hitters. That's the early line on Mitchell.

The Mustangs, playing in 6A for the last time in the foreseeable future, have the attention of the other District 7 opponents through the first week-plus of the season.

Led by University of Florida-bound Patrick Schuster, Coach Scot Wilcox has put together a team heavy with senior leadership. Schuster, who will start tonight against Gaither, went six hitless innings in a 7-0 season-opening win against Central, striking out 13 of the 20 batters he faced. Matt Hart came in and struck out the side in the seventh to preserve the no-hitter.

Three days later, senior Michael Grande made his Mitchell debut with a five-inning no-hitter against 1A Oldsmar Christian. Grande, who moved from South Carolina, struck out 11 and walked one.

Mitchell's fielding has been shaky at times - the Mustangs committed five errors against Countryside on Tuesday - but that senior leadership has been able to keep the younger players upbeat and the Mustangs undefeated heading into Thursday night's Sunshine Athletic Conference game at Gulf.

JUST HAVING FUN: Along with starting 2-1 this season, attending a Wiregrass Ranch home game can be entertaining off the field as well. The public address announcer has come up with clever nicknames for the starting Bulls. Some include Jose "Speedy" Gonzalez, Josh "The Original" Johnson (Pasco High also has a Josh Johnson), Chris "Wonder" Kluender and James "The Body" Owens. But the best is Michael "Honeybaked" Hamilton.

A.J. Leppla's team is 2-1 after extra-inning wins against Sunlake and Wesley Chapel, and the Bulls' next win will tie the school record for victories in a season. Their only loss is an 8-7 decision to Zephyrhills.

PICKED OFF: When Gulf coach Shaun Wiemer showed up at school Feb. 17, he found most of his equipment had been stolen out of the team's Rudy Snyder Field locker room.

"What hurt the most is we had five fundraisers just to get the equipment we needed," Wiemer said recently. "Some of our guys just can't go out and buy another glove or bat."

Wiemer said Thursday the community has come forward and made donations toward replacing the stolen equipment. Anyone wishing to contribute should contact Wiemer at (727) 967-4500.