Miami Dade College’s baseball team has won 17 of their last 23 games, rebounding from a 9-11 start.
The winning spree pushed the Sharks record to 30-21 as they head into the state playoffs.
Much of the team’s success can be attributed to sophomore outfielder Michael Petite’s breakout season.
The hitting star leads the Sharks in various offensive categories, including a .366 batting average, a .683 slug percentage, a .543 on base percentage and 22 stolen bases.
He ranks second on the squad with 11 home runs and 59 hits and is third with 40 RBI. Petite has also proven to have a sharp eye, walking 47 times this season.
Petite has already surpassed his season-ending statistics from last year when he hit nine home runs, added 35 RBI and had a .291 batting average.
“The most important thing with Michael has been the transition from being a good player as a freshman to much more than that as a sophomore,” said Sharks head coach Lazaro Llanes. “He’s grown into a great man, a great teammate, and has made those around him better.”
Influenced by his mother’s affinity for softball, Petite started playing baseball at the age of 4. He played on recreational and travel teams in his hometown of Melbourne. When he was 12, Petite started playing for the Georgia Baseball Academy and the A Rays, a nationally-ranked travel team in Georgia.
“[Baseball is] just home for me, it’s the one thing I know and the place I feel the most comfortable,” Petite said. “The relationships I’ve developed, meeting people through baseball is the reason I have liked it so much.”
Petite remained with the Rays until he was 16. That summer he joined the Florida Travel Baseball Philadelphia Phillies scout team.
“I played with them for a while,” Petite said. “They had a bunch of big names such as Drew Jones and Elijah Green, all future first-round picks.”
After high school, Petite committed to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but he de-committed before joining the Sharks.
At MDC, despite the team’s 28-26 record last year, Petite soaked in all the knowledge he could from team leaders such as D’Angelo Ortiz—the son of baseball Hall of Famer David Ortiz—who was drafted in the 19th round of the 2024 Major League Baseball draft by the Boston Red Sox’s.
“D’Angelo was a big leader for our team because he’s been around such a high-level of baseball his entire life,” Petite said. “When he spoke, I listened.”
Petite is now applying the wisdom he learned.
“Just trying to be consistent coming out and being the same team every day is something we need to focus on,” Petite said. “We’ve definitely been more consistent than last year.”
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