Rich Donahue Expectations are always high for the Hopewell Viking baseball team. And when you win two WPIAL 4A Championships over the past 4 seasons, you can see why.
But 2024 was a back step for the Vikings, exiting in the first round of the playoffs while struggling to stay above .500 with a young roster.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
As they enter the 2025 season, Hopewell is ready to make it back to Wild Things Park in Washington County.
Head coach Morgan Singletary shared his optimism with the team’s progression during their preseason training.
“Workouts have been pretty good,” Singletary said. “We have them through the winter with our junior high through varsity kids working out together so we have a wide range of athletes there but it’s really focused on improving aspects of their game and getting better. They’ve gone really well so far.”
If they hope to make it back to Wild Things Park, the Vikings will have to traverse through a tough section. Ambridge, Central Valley and North Catholic are projected to be a lot better than last year while traditional power Blackhawk is always in the mix. Hampton will join their conference after dropping down 5A.
Regardless of tough matchups, Singletary believes the experience his young team gained last year will pay dividends in 2025.
“I think experience mostly is what’s gonna help out,” Singletary stated. “We had a lot of sophomores, a lot of young players playing. We even had some freshmen playing games so we had a lot of young guys in their first real experience with varsity, so them getting that experience and seeing how they performed.”
“Knowing the group of kids they are, they want to improve whether it slightly or a big jump we’ll see, but they’re definitely put in the work to have that improvement.”
Where that big improvement will be needed, according to Singletary, will be on offense for the Vikings.
“Our pitching was really good last year, but our hitting wasn’t as good,” Singletary said. “A lot of kids haven’t struggled like that before so I think getting that experience and seeing what’s expected out of them and what they need to do to be successful really pushed them a little bit and this year I think we’re gonna see the work they put in from last year.”
Pitching will once again be the strong point of this Hopewell squad. The Vikings have a great pitching staff that includes Kingston Krotec and David Medich, who is the grandson of former Pirates and Yankees pitcher Doc Medich, who pitched in the MLB in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Singletary is excited to see what this group can do again in 2025.
“I think our pitching is gonna be really solid this year,” Singletary stated. “We have a lot of arms and we plan on using a lot of arms as long as everyone stays healthy, which is always a big question with pitchers in high school and pretty much at any level. We’re gonna have Kingston (Krotec), David (Medich) and Ben McDonald. We had some younger guys that got some experience last year, but I’m expecting them to take big strides and take some of the load off of the guys.”
But at the end of the day, a pitching staff is only as good as who is manning the backstop, and the Vikings have a good one. Charlie Smetana had a breakout sophomore campaign behind the plate and has already garnered interest from Division 1 programs. Having a catcher with Smetana’s ability makes life a lot easier for the Vikings, which can be the difference between a good and great team according to Singletary.
“We’ve been really lucky at the catcher position,” Singletary said. “The whole team revolves around that and it can make or break games, giving extra base and giving extra balls that should’ve been strikes. When Charlie went in, we pretty much threw him into the fire his freshman year because we needed to make a change.”
“He started the second half of his freshman year and was around for that championship working with the pitchers. He knows how to talk to them (the pitchers) and communicate what we need so having him back there and having a steady person back there is very important. He knows how to manage them when their stuff might not be going as good.”
While pitching and catching will be the core of this Vikings team, Singletary expects some of his other young players to take a big step on offense as well.
“I think we’re gonna have a couple guys on offense really step up, ” Singletary stated. “I think Logan Triscilla’s offense is gonna take a big improvement this year. Another guy I see contributing will be Jake Knobloch. He’s a sophomore this year and he’ll be pitching for us along with playing the field so we’re expecting to see some improvement out of him from his freshman year. I’m excited to see what he does. And Drew Donovan’s gonna have more time in the field and we would like to see some improvement from him on offense.”
“Some young guys coming up we’re gonna need to contribute. We’ll probably have two or three freshmen playing with our varsity team including James Armstrong. We haven’t got to see him much because he’s been playing football and basketball, but we are excited to see what he’s able to do on the baseball field.”
With a great nucleus on the mound and behind the plate coupled with a good, young core, the Vikings are in prime position to once again make it back to the WPIAL playoffs and make a deep run.
Their season starts March 11th at home versus Peters Township.
