Rich Donahue The 2025 season has been full of peaks and valleys for the Hopewell Vikings baseball team.
Starting off the season 0-5, the Vikings have rallied over the last month and find themselves right in the middle of 4A WPIAL Playoff hunt with a big series looming this week against rival Central Valley.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
Despite the slow start, head coach Morgan Singletary is proud of his young team staying the course.
“We’ve been reading the energy of the team, staying positive, and continuing to work towards the goals that we have,” Singletary said. “Nothing’s changed since the beginning of the year. We’re starting to put things together which is a good thing. We just held the course.”
“We know what the potential was. It was just a matter of achieving that. I think we’re getting close to seeing all that put together.”
And that comes at the perfect time with 4 section games remaining in the season. The Vikings will face the Warriors of Central Valley this week and close out their section schedule against Blackhawk next week, which could be a battle for the section title or a fight for a playoff spot.
But after a great sweep series against Hampton last week, Singletary believes his team is peaking at the right time heading into this final stretch run.
“We probably had our most complete game in that first Hampton game where the pitching was really good, defense was extraordinary and then our hitting finally came together,” Singletary stated.
“And then the second Hampton game, hitting held up, pitching was still really good and defense was still good enough. I think we’re starting to put the pieces together. Beginning of the season obviously didn’t go how we wanted to, but I think we’re in a good spot right now.”
Singletary hopes that momentum continues this week.
“I really think we just need to keep playing how we played the past two games,” Singletary said. “We went into the Hampton series and that was pretty much a must win for us and the kids understood it and they responded to that. And now we’re looking at Central Valley. They might not be must wins, but they’re about as close as they can get because if we can end up winning them both, then I think that puts us in the playoffs. So we’re looking at it that way, two games that can get us into the playoffs.”
Coming into the season, Singletary was excited about his pitching staff and knew it would carry them through the year. It has been that and then some this season for the Vikings, but the offense is finally coming around at the right time.
“I would definitely say our pitching is our strength,” Singletary said. “They’ve kept us in a lot of the games that we lost. We had the ability to win just because our pitching performed so well. But with that being said, the offense is doing their part now in the last couple games. I’m happy to see how our offense has progressed and how some of the younger kids have really stepped up and started taking on rules that we want them to take on. So I’d say our strength is still our pitching, but everything’s starting to complement that really well.”
Charlie Smetana and Kingston Krotec have been two of the keys for the Vikings offense in this late season resurgence. Logan Triscila has also set up at the plate throughout the season.
If the pitching continues to control games and the offense progresses like it has, the Vikings should find their way back in the playoffs. For Singletary, he is taking it one game at a time and hopes they continue to roll into the playoffs, and they will be a tough out for any team.
“If we continue to play the way that we have, we can compete against almost any team. It’s just going to be a matter of how we get there,” Singletary stated. “If we get on a nice little roll and put a bunch of games together here at the end of the season, that will give us a lot of momentum going into playoffs, which can really help. It’s just how this next series goes against CV and then honestly, how the series after that goes against Blackhawk, and we’re just really taking it one game at a time because that’s kind of where our season’s at.”
