McCallum High senior Jacob Castillo had a monster game at the plate with a triple, a double, two walks, three runs scored and three runs driven in as RBI Austin cruised to an 11-1 win over Rangers Youth Academy. Photo by Grace Nugent.
Castillo’s bat, Schuelke’s arm too much for Rangers YA
GAME 2 FINAL: RBI Austin 11, Rangers Youth Academy 1
Austin High junior Ryan Schuelke threw a six-inning complete game allowing only one earned run, and McCallum senior Jacob Castillo belted a triple and a double and walked twice to score three runs and drive in three runs as the RBI Austin 18U team defeated Rangers Youth Academy, 11-1, to improve to 2-0 at the Southwest Regional Tournament at Concordia University’s Tornado Field on Friday night.
When you consider that McCallum’s Marc Juarez, the starting pitcher of RBI Austin’s 13-3 morning victory over Astros RBI, reached base in the the game and that the McCallum varsity head coach Brandon Grant and Schuelke’s older sister Kennedy, McCallum Class of 2018 and one of five 2017-2018 editors who used to run MacJournalism, both attended Friday night’s game, you’d have to say that RBI Austin benefited from a little Knight Time.
But there were other Austin-area heroes for the host team on Friday night.
Hays HS grad Andrew Guzman delivered a clutch hit to tie the game at 1 after the Rangers had homered early to take a 1-0 lead. Santiago Rodriguez of Akins HS went 3-for-3 including a two-run hit to make it 3-1, and Austin HS grad Skylar Valdez matched that with a two-run single to make it 5-1.
Schuelke’s control helped out his effort on the mound. He needed only 74 pitches to get through the six innings needed to win the game.