Florida prep baseball powerhouse suspends nine players, five Division I prospects
Perennial national prep baseball powerhouse Tampa (Fla.) Jesuit High suspended nine players -- including five Division I prospects -- for undisclosed violations of school policy, according to The Tampa Tribune.
While the school's director of communications would not disclose the players or the specific violation, Tribune contributor Jarrett Guthrie discovered nine names removed from the Jesuit roster on MaxPreps.com.
Among them are a handful of Division I baseball commits: senior outfielders Ricky Caldevilla (South Florida), and Evan Cannan (High Point), senior left-handed pitcher Hunter Van Horn (LSU), junior southpaw Bobby Hearn (Wake Forest) and sophomore left-hander Clayton Kwiatkowski (Florida St.).
According to statistics listed on MaxPreps.com, the nine suspended players were responsible for eight of Jesuit's 12 wins on the mound and 33 of the Tigers' 87 runs at the plate in the season's first 14 games.
In Jesuit's 7-4 win over nationally ranked Pensacola (Fla.) Catholic on March 15, which snapped the nation's longest prep baseball winning streak, Hearn picked up the victory on the hill and Cannan had a pair of hits.
However, when the Tigers took the field in New Orleans for a pair of games against Louisiana schools, none of the nine suspended appeared in either game, according to The Tampa Tribune.
Led by Caldevilla's 33 RBI, Jesuit reached Florida's state semifinals for the fourth straight spring in 2013.
Jesuit's esteemed baseball alumni includes Hall of Famer Al Lopez, three-time World Series champion Lou Piniella and current Texas Rangers hitting coach Dave Magadan. The school's 1,000-seat baseball stadium earned Field of the Year honors from the National High School Baseball Coaches Association in 2011.
