Many Knights will play in college

With the recent commitments of Ryan Bhojwani and Joe Suarez to play college baseball, that makes 11 players from the 2020 Bishop O’Connell Knights high-school team who will compete at the next level.

Suarez, a 2020 graduate, will play at Harford Community College in Maryland. Rising senior Bhojwani will play at Rice University in Texas. Both are infielder/outfielders.

“We knew we had the potential to have a lot to play in college, but we didn’t know how many,” O’Connell coach Kyle Padgett said about the private-school team.

Having that many players from one high-school team to have the opportunity to play in college is considerable, maybe the most of any 2020 team in Northern Virginia. Public-school Madison High in Vienna had 10 college commits from its 2020 squad, with public McLean High having a half-dozen or so.

O’Connell was expected to contend for the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and Division I state private-school titles this past spring. The Knights played just one game because the rest of the 2020 campaign was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two of O’Connell’s top 2020 graduates who will play in college are infielder/pitcher Eddie Eisert at North Carolina State and pitcher/first baseman Jake Berry at the University of Virginia. Each played in the local Northern Virginia Collegiate League this summer during July.

Pitcher/outfielder and 2020 graduate Corey Knauf will play at the College of Wooster. Rising junior Jack O’Connor (pitcher/infielder) will play at the University of Virginia.

Rising senior Nicholas Frazier has chosen Virginia Commonwealth University to play and classmate Jake Feffer will play at the University of South Florida.

Additionally, 2020 graduates Riley O’Donovan will play at the University of Lynchburg, Jack Jones at Cabrini University and Brandon Kim at McGill University.