TAMPA, Fla. — Leto High just isn’t a sports school.

The football team hasn’t won a game since 2014. Eight years ago, the Falcons failed to field a girls basketball team due to a lack of participants. Being an athlete at Leto can be tough.

“People were like, you’re going to go to Leto and play baseball? They suck,” senior pitcher Christian Suarez said.

Christian Suarez and the Falcons baseball team are changing the culture at Leto, one pitch, one hit and one win at a time.

“We’re a very tight-knit community,” Suarez said. “Now, we’re all coming together over baseball. People are looking forward to coming to your games and people stop you in the hallways and say, great job last night. It’s just awesome.”

Leto’s heading to its second-consecutive Final Four. They lost in the state semis last season but are primed for a run straight through to the title game this year.

“They understand if they play together, it does give us a chance to do some great things,” Coach JJ Pizzio said. “That’s pretty much been our M.O. all season.”

 It feels like family at Leto. The mostly Hispanic community has wrapped it’s collective arms around this team.

“We all play together so well, it kind of creates like a fire in all of us and if one of us falls down, another one is always going to help pick us up,” senior utility Bryan Perez said. “The love that we play the game, you know, they notice how much we love it, so that brings the fans out.”

The Falcons team spirit permeates the hallways at Leto, but Suarez, a senior pitcher and the student government vice president said that wasn’t always the case.

“My first few years at Leto, nobody really wanted to represent Leto, nobody was proud to go to Leto,” Suarez said.

Pride has made its way to this West Tampa school. Now, sporting the Leto logo is popular.

“Most of the school’s wearing something with Leto baseball on it,” Pizzio said. “We’re just one little part of what’s special about the school.”

 Leto is special, with a baseball team engineering a special season that could deliver the school’s first state  championship.

“Hopefully the other programs around school can feed of us, this winning environment that we’re creating,” Suarez said. “Having success creates unity and makes you want to represent your school, makes you want to make your school a better place and it makes you proud to say I go to Leto.”