Ynclan to pitch for University of Houston-Victoria

SHINER — With the amount of sports Marco Ynclan played, some may not have guessed what the St. Paul Cardinal wanted to do during college. But if you really knew him then you’d know that playing baseball has always been a dream of his and now Ynclan is on his way to becoming a college baseball pitcher.

On Wednesday, Shiner St. Paul celebrated Ynclan as he signed his intent to play baseball for the University of Houston-Victoria (UHV). After become a state champion in multiple sports, Ynclan always knew that baseball was the route he wanted to take after high school.

“I’ve always loved baseball,” Ynclan said, “started off when I was four years old. After that, I just kept playing, kept with it and started to like it more and more while I grew up. It’s something I always wanted to play and hope I make it big one day, make it a career.”

Ynclan pitched for Shiner St. Paul and though there really much of a plan his senior year, it was a tryout at the end of his junior year that allowed him this opportunity.

“[Blake McCracken] told me about this tryout in June [2015], so I went over there and started throwing pitches for their coach,” Ynclan recalled. “The coach said ‘I’m interested in you, I want you to play for me next year.’ I said OK and he gave me this offer then sure enough, it’s time to play.”

“I really hoped I would be able to play in college but I didn’t know if anybody was going to come look at me,” he continued. “I was going to just wing it and see if people would come watch me or not. This opportunity came through the tryouts, so it was really good.”

Though his focus is to hopefully one day “make it big,” Ynclan is very much interested in forensic sciences and join an organization like the FBI.

“I would love to do that,” he said.

But for this upcoming year, Ynclan is mainly focused on improving himself both on and off-the-field. And if he can do that, then he’ll find some success.

One sour note that Ynclan did share was he wouldn’t be able to bat during his time at UHV.

“I was upset when [coach] told me this but he told me I wasn’t going to be able to bat anymore,” Ynclan said. “But I guess he just wants his pitchers to be relaxed all the time.”

It makes sense that Ynclan wanted to do it all as everybody in Shiner St. Paul athletics pretty much did it all, and that’s exactly one of the things he’s going to miss.

“I’ll miss everybody being a part of the big team,” he said. “The whole school is just one big team and that’s what I’ll miss about, everybody is just connected to each other, we’re all just one big family, I mean that’s what I’ll miss the most. Playing sports of course.”

Ynclan may not be allowed to do it all anymore but at least his main objective he’s always wanted to do since he was four. Play baseball.