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Schuster wins Florida's Mr. Baseball award

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By RICK HARMON

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 11, 2009

It's been an interesting week for Mitchell High's Patrick Schuster.

On Wednesday, the left-handed pitcher was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 13th round of the Major League Baseball first-year player draft. And Thursday, he was named Florida's Mr. Baseball by the Florida Dairy Farmers.

Schuster, a senior pitcher/first baseman, finished the 2009 season with an 8-1 record, a 0.93 ERA and 115 strikeouts in 60 innings. Schuster also recorded five no-hitters and gained national exposure by throwing four consecutive no-hitters.

"This is a great honor for me and my team," Schuster said. "It was a good season and I got a lot of publicity but I couldn't have done it without my teammates so I will accept this award for them, as well."

Schuster, who played first base when not on the mound, finished with a .403 batting average, three doubles, one home run, 21 runs scored and 21 RBI as the Mustangs finished 22-4 and won the Sunshine Athletic Conference title.

"This is a tremendous award for Patrick," said Mitchell baseball coach Scot Wilcox. "Most people know Patrick for his pitching but they don't know how valuable he was to our team in other ways. His leadership was outstanding and he was our best defensive player."

Schuster, who was the Class 6A player-of the-year, earned six first-place votes and 94 total points from a statewide panel of high school baseball coaches and high school media. Second was Josh Patton of Naples (Class 4A), followed by Mychal Givens of Plant (5A), Jordan Carroll of Madison County (3A), Jacob Johnson of Lake Worth Trinity Christian (1A), John Nogowski of Tallahassee North Florida Christian (2A) and Josh Romeo of Hernando Christian (1A).

Schuster has signed a letter of intent to attend the University of Florida and will decide between college and professional baseball in the coming weeks.

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