Mike Vukovcan HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP– In any level of baseball, whether it’s the high school, minor leagues, MLB or youth baseball, strong pitching and defense will give you an excellent chance to win.
Last night, Hopewell’s Team Rinaldi (Sadler Landscaping) 9-10-year-old team was going up against South Side/Wilson, which came into the game with a perfect record of 7-0.
Established in 1986, family owned and serving the Beaver County community for over 40 years. Serving breakfast favorites and lunch specials.
This team from South Side has been dominant this season, averaging 13 runs per game so this was going to be a challenge for Hopewell.
However, thanks to outstanding starting pitching and strong defense, Hopewell came away with a 7-4 win.
Last week, Team Rinaldi defeated another team from South Side, 13-10, which also came into the game undefeated.
That was until they took on the Vikings!
STRONG PITCHING!
Total team win but it was no doubt sparked by the 4 pitchers that took the mound- Tristyn Trkulja, Jonah Honess, Mason Thumm and Declan Rinaldi. Big time performance!
Trkulja got the start and went 2 innings, allowing just 1 hit, 2 runs (1 earned run), 1 walk and 3 strikeouts.
This performance continues Tristyn’s strong recent outings on the mound. In his last 3 games, here are his combined stats: 6 innings, 3 hits, 3 earned runs, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts.
Honess went the next 2 innings, giving up just 1 hit, 2 runs (0 earned runs), 0 walks and 3 K’s. Thumm pitched a perfect 5th inning, striking out 2 batters and Rinaldi closed the game out, allowing 2 hits, 0 runs and 0 walks.
OUTSTANDING DEFENSE!
The pitching was strong and were helped out by their guys in the field.
Established in 1986, family owned and serving the Beaver County community for over 40 years. Serving breakfast favorites and lunch specials.
1st Inning: Trkulja fielded a comebacker to the mound, Kade Glass recorded an out on a nice fielder’s choice at second and Micah Zughaib ended the inning by catching a flyout to right field.
2nd Inning: Trkulja struck out the side in the second.
3rd Inning: Rinaldi caught a fly ball at short stop and Grayden McNally fielded a ground ball at 3rd base and threw the runner out at first.
4th Inning: Honess struck out 2 batters and the final out came on another ground out to third base. A shout out to the first baseman on the team (Will Vukovcan and Trkulja) who’ve done an outstanding job catching the throws over to first. It seems like a simple thing but that’s never the case when you’re dealing with 9 and 10-year-olds.
5th Inning: Thumm recorded 2 strikeouts and the other out came on a line out to Rinaldi in center field.
6th Inning: Honess caught a lineout at shortstop, Rinaldi fielded a groundball at pitcher and the game ended on a groundout to Honess at shortstop.
HOPEWELL OFFENSIVE STATISTICS:
*McNally, Honess, Trkulja, Glass and Nick Hughes recorded hits for Hopewell.
*With only 5 hits, the Hopewell hitters did a nice job at not swinging at pitches out of the zone as they drew 11 walks. Thumm with 3, Vukovcan with 2, McNally with 2, Rinaldi with 1, Honess with 1, Zughaib with 1 and Cullen Harcum with 1. Jack Stager also reached base twice as he was hit by a pitch two times.
Team Rinaldi (Sadler Landscaping) has now won 4 of their last 5 games and will return to action next Tuesday when they travel to Freedom.
