Fast Break: No-hitter streak ends at four

Prep Baseball

No-hitter streak ends at four

A Florida high school pitcher came up short in his bid to throw a fifth straight no-hit game.

Mitchell High School ace Patrick Schuster had put together a string of four no-hitters going into Tuesday’s district tournament game, and had worked through the first two innings before allowing a double to Gaither High’s Drew Doty at a high school field in Clearwater.

Mitchell was eliminated by Gaither 9-4. Schuster worked five innings, allowing five runs – three earned – and three hits. He struck out five and hit three batters.

The national record for consecutive no-hitters by a high school pitcher is six.

The last time Schuster gave up a hit was March 24.

He barely reacted after giving up the hit, walking around the mound once before getting back on the rubber as a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 applauded.

In his next turn at bat, Schuster hit an RBI single to give his team a 3-2 lead.

The 6-foot-2, 170-pound pitcher is ranked as the 79th-best prospect – the 42nd-best high school prospect – in the country by Baseball America. He has signed with the University of Florida. He is expected to be a second-round pick in the June amateur draft.

Going into Tuesday’s game, Schuster had given up nine hits in 55 innings this season, and was 8-0 with 110 strikeouts.

Schuster would have become the fourth high school pitcher to throw five straight no-hitters. Two players have thrown six in a row.

Men’s basketball

Vandals sign Texas guard

Guard Landon Tatum has signed a letter of intent to play at Idaho.

Tatum is a guard who was the only player to start all 31 games last season for a South Plains College (Texas) team that finished with a 27-4 overall record. He averaged 7.1 points and 5.8 assists per game and was the team’s leader in minutes played. He is a 2007 graduate of O’Connor High School in Helotes, Texas.

Arena football

AF2 owner: Vick offer ‘mistake’

The owner of a minor league football team that offered Michael Vick a contract told a newspaper he didn’t know about the publicity stunt and would not have approved it.

“I’m a dog lover and I don’t want anything to do with (Vick),” Albany (N.Y.) Firebirds owner Walter Robb told The Times Union for a story posted on its Web site.

Earlier in the day, the arenafootball2 franchise announced it had offered the 28-year-old quarterback a one-year contract at the league standard: $200 a week plus a $50 bonus for a win.

“That’s a joke,” Robb said. “I think (the offer) was a big mistake.”

The announcement was later pulled from the team’s Web site.