Mike Vukovcan It’s a big night for basketball in Hopewell!
The Hopewell Boys Youth travel teams all have important playoff matchups taking place at various locations throughout Beaver County.
Tonight, at the Hopewell Junior High School, the 5th grade team will take on Central Valley in the semifinals (6 PM), while the 3rd grade boys’ team will be playing for the championships as they go up against West Allegheny at 7 PM.
Elsewhere, the Hopewell 6th grade squad will go up against Beaver in the semifinals. That game will tipoff at 7 PM in Beaver. The action will continue tomorrow in Avonworth as our 4th grade team will take on Avonworth in the semifinals.
So, as you can see, these Hopewell Boys Youth teams are doing well and are more than competitive against other programs in Beaver County and beyond.
For those not aware, this is Hopewell’s version of travel basketball which is part of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club/ Beaver County Bantam Basketball League that play throughout the season against programs such as Moon, Central Valley, Beaver, Avonworth, Aliquippa, Beaver Falls, Blackhawk and Ambridge. These teams compete in the regular season and then compete in playoffs, which is currently going on.
Since the season is shortly coming to a close and with so many kids involved or that will be involved in the future, Vikings Sports Now wanted to get a review of the season and look ahead to Hopewell Youth Boys’ Basketball. VSN had the chance to talk to Dave Gigliotti, one of 4 members of Hopewell Youth Basketball’s Board of Directors, which is comprised of Gigliotti, Craig Biller, Andrew Honess and Darren Newberry.
“One of the things that we try and do as a league is have year to year improvement,” Gigliotti tells Vikings Sports Now. “So, looking at it that way, we might see if we can make it more developmental, how are we reaching more kids. We want to make sure that kids that might have a little more experience are challenged but kids that have less experience have an opportunity to learn more basketball.”
“We added another game within the regular season, we want to make sure that we offer enough practices for the kids, so those things I believe we’re doing a better job of. So, I believe that we’re doing a better job of that but still have room to grow. I think we’ve seen kids grow and get better plus team-wise, we’ve grown and gotten more competitive against some of these bigger districts.”
Being a part of Hopewell basketball for many years, Gigliotti has watched and coached many teams and players. I was curious to see if he’s seen the talent level notably increase over the years.
“I would love to say that that has gotten better as a league but honestly that comes down to individual kids committing to play basketball in the offseason,” said Gigliotti. “So, you’re going to have age groups of kids that do and then age groups that, they still compete against these other schools, but they might not be as ahead as other age groups in development.”
“As a league, we are trying to develop on more skill work for the players which will help but to really get better, more kids have to be committed to not putting the basketball down in the offseason and not picking the ball up again until the season starts the following season.”
Baseball and football have predominantly been the top boys sports in Hopewell on the high school level but Gigliotti doesn’t see any reason why basketball can’t join that conversation.
“It’s all about putting in the work, it’s putting the right people in the position to help make that happen.,” said Gigliotti. “Yes, I do honestly believe that Hopewell has a chance to be real competitive in boys’ basketball. Basically, what you need is a couple of kids from each age group. If you have a bunch that’s a really good thing but really, you need a couple key contributors from each grade level to make a high school program compete. As long as our kids stick with it, and put the time in during the offseason, Hopewell should be able to. But a big thing is having the right people in charge.”
Speaking of right people in charge, Gigliotti wanted to highlight a couple people in the community that are a huge part of the growth and development of Hopewell Boys Youth Basketball.
“A big key for us is that we developed a board, which has been a big help because if you have just 1 or 2 people in charge, although you’re trying your best and you do have good intentions and doing your best, in the end you’re only one person. Now for the first time that I’m aware of, going back to when my oldest was in 3rd grade, we have a board made up of four people. “
“Behind the scenes, Craig Biller is a guy that doesn’t want to take any credit for many things, but he handles a lion’s share of the youth league. His organization, his open perspective on league issues, his willingness to listen to different perspectives which is key to strong organizational leadership. His focus on getting 3-on-3 leagues in the summer, let’s get a summer league, let’s get skills work in the offseason, Biller is a very big part of all of that. “
“Brandon Ambrose, obviously a lot of his time goes to his high school team over at Central Valley, but he puts a lot of his time and a lot of his knowledge into the youth league. Once again, he’s another guy that does a lot of things behind the scenes and people don’t really know how much he does and orchestrates things. We have the right guys with good basketball experience and knowledge making key decisions which I believe is making us better.”
Gigs and I wrapped up out conversation by looking ahead and seeing things the board might like to add as a way of getting better.
“We’ve talked about possibly entering a Sunday League, maybe every age group isn’t interested because it’s more of a commitment. A lot of the programs out there like North Allegheny, Montour, Moon, they’re doing a Sunday League in addition to the PBC League,” said Gigliotti. “If you want to keep up and grow your program, you can do that during the season. That’s something that we’re going to discuss and if some of the age groups aren’t interested, maybe others are. “
“From an in-house perspective, we’d like to re-visit the extended in-house. We wanted to do something this year but couldn’t get it off the ground quick enough where we had a deal with M7 to as a gift to all the kids in the league, we were able to offer a discount. So, how do you promote kids to keep a basketball in their hands, get them a discounted membership to go down to M7 for a month of two and play after in-house ends, especially for the kids that aren’t on a travel team. Then two years from now, they might be on the travel team or the junior high team or high school team.”
A big thanks to this Hopewell board and all the coaches that volunteer their time for these kids.
Good luck tonight in your pursuit of a championship!
