Vikings Sports now would like to congratulate four Hopewell baseball players for earning a special opportunity.
Hopewell’s Vin Smetana, Tyler Hoffman, Ryder Kostrick and Liam Rankin have been selected to the 376 Beaver County Pony League All-Star team that will compete to qualify for the national 2026 Pony League World Series.
Following the completion of the Pony League season, selected players from Beaver County’s 16 Pony League teams were invited to a tryout to become a member of this team.
Afterwards, Smetana, Hoffman, Kostrick and Rankin were four of the 15 players selected to the team.
Hopewell’s Tyler Hoffman
Hopewell’s Ryder Kostrick
Last year, Andrew Arzberger and Luke Vukovcan were selected to this team and advanced by winning a couple of games before losing to a team from the South Hills. The year before that it was James Armstrong and Collin Davis that made this squad.
The 376 Beaver County team will compete in a qualifier tournament at the end of July. The winner of that tournament will qualify for the Pony League World Series. Teams from Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania will be competing in this qualifier tournament.
This obviously will not be easy, but this is no doubt a memorable opportunity.
Vikings Sports Now spoke with the head coach of this team Matt DeChicko who shared with us his thoughts and the opportunity this group of players have.
“We’re looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity in front of us,” said DeChicko. “This will provide this group of kids the opportunity to compete against the best kids in the area and at the end of the day, we’ll find out where we stack up.”
“We decided to roster 15 players, which is the max, I think last year they took 12. I think everyone on our roster can pitch and we went in wanting to make sure we had enough pitching because of the double elimination and the pitching rule they use. With the pitch count, you need to have enough depth at pitching and didn’t want to come up short with that.”
This 376 Beaver County team held their first official practice on Sunday and DeChicko shared with us one of the things he and his coaching staff will be stressing with the players.
“Part of the message will be, a lot of them have been one of the best players on their team. But for this to work, people are going to have to take on different roles and different responsibilities. For this to work, everyone is going to have to be Ok with that,” said DeChicko.
“We have 15 kids and there’s only 9 positions; kids are going to be in and out. They’re going to have to pull together as a team.”
Hopewell’s Vin Smetana
Hopewell’s Liam Rankin
The bottom line is that this will be a huge challenge but at the same time, it’ll be a tremendous memory for these players and coaches. In fact, they’ll have a chance to make history.
“As far as I know, 376 has never made the World Series, I’ve been told they’ve been close a couple of times but never made it,” said DeChicko. “There’s always really good teams, like last year South Hills or previously Youngstown is pretty good. It’s a big challenge but we’re ready to take it on and see where it leads.”
Vikings Sports Now will be keeping you updated on the progress of this team, especially the four players from Hopewell.
Best of luck to them and the rest of the 376 Beaver County team!
