Jayce Cicinelli is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Casteel High School for AZPreps365.com 

A huge baseball tournament is a perfect way to bring communities together. 

Casteel High School will be hosting the Coach Bob National Invitational baseball tournament. It is a two week baseball tournament where almost 100 different schools battle at different sites around the Arizona valley. 

This is Casteel’s biggest fundraiser for the booster club of the baseball team. Not only is it a good cause for their boosters, but they get to have about 120 volunteers to help out around the school to get the community involved to help in setting everything up for the tournament. 

Casteel’s baseball booster club president, Brandon Harwood, is excited for this fundraiser and tournament to see it on display at Casteel High School. 

“The biggest thing for us is getting involved and bringing together people more and us recognizing our volunteers throughout the boosters,” Harwood said. “We feed them at the tournament and we give each volunteer a shirt as well because we are thankful for our volunteers who help out.”

Casteel’s field was upgraded recently within the last couple of years providing brand new bleachers and an announcer box on the top of the bleachers. They also have provided netting around home plate that wasn’t there the last couple of years. 

The field has been in great shape since these upgrades as the boosters plan to make even more upgrades in the future with the help of the Coach Bob National Invitational Tournament. 

“The next few things on the list are upgrading both dugouts and creating a clubhouse for Casteel’s team,” Harwood said. “We also want to add a press box and some trees around the outfield beyond the fences.”

The Casteel High School baseball team won’t be competing in this tournament. Casteel has already played in the Boras Classic Tournament and will be competing in the USSSA Tournament in North Carolina. 

High School teams are only allowed to be in two baseball tournaments for the whole season. Casteel, however, has participated in the Coach Bob National Invitational Tournament in the past. 

The different out-of-state schools in this tournament range from California, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois, New Mexico, Idaho, and Florida. 

Head coach Matt Denny is ecstatic as well for Casteel to be the host school in this tournament and knows it’s good for the school. 

“It’s really important for our boosters and we know it's all hands on deck with help from our parents and volunteers,” Denny said. “We got a lot of volunteers helping out with announcing, the gate for tickets, music for walkup songs, and concessions.” 

It’s no question that it takes a ton of volunteers to make this tournament possible on the two baseball fields that Casteel has. Not only announcers, but the people at the gates for ticket sales, walkup songs, and concessions also set up the field to make sure it's ready to be played on. 

Fundraisers are very important for this baseball team because it will allow them to keep making those upgrades to make their field look even better. Senior Kyler Anderson knows the value of fundraisers and how it helps them as a team not only on the field but off the field. 

“The fundraisers are very important for our team as we know it helps us get more team equipment and machines throughout our practices,” Anderson said. “It also allows us to work as a team off the field with our community.”