Mike Vukovcan The 2025-26 Hopewell HS Girls Basketball season tipped off Monday night as the Vikings traveled to take on West Allegheny in a non-section game.
The reality of things is that the upcoming season will be very challenging for the Lady Vikings as they’re trying to overcome a lot of obstacles.
First and foremost, senior Caylee Sundy will miss the entire season after suffering a knee injury in the off-season. That’s devasting for Coach Homziak’s squad because Sundy is Hopewell’s most talented players and one of the best players in Beaver County.
Caylee was Hopewell’s point guard, leading scorer and team leader.
Hopewell also has another starter from last season not playing this season so the depth and after losing others to graduation, the depth on this 2025-26 team is challenged.
Despite all that, the season must go on, and it will. Hopewell will show up, will be prepared and will compete as they did last night against West Allegheny.
Although they’ll try and win every game, the theme of this season will be about the development of young players on the roster. The underclassman, Avery Boyd, Ava Ray, Addison Blosnick, Cici Smetana, Hannah McDowell, Abbey Kovell, Lili Enders have talent but they’re all young, which means they’ll be growing pains.
Taking the glass half full mentality, with a year of on-court experience and the addition next year of talented players from the 8th grade roster, the results could look much different next season for Hopewell.
It’ll be fun this season to watch the development of the players on the roster and as the season goes on, the team will get better.
Last night in the season opener, Hopewell took on a tough opponent in West Allegheny and lost 63-35.
WA got off to a strong start, leading 20-11 after the 1st quarter and 37-14 at halftime.
The biggest bright spot for the Vikings was the play of sophomore guard Cici Smetana, who scored a career-high 16 points. Smetana was particularly strong from outside as she connected on 4 3-pointers.
Smetana received a lot of varsity playing time last season as a freshman and has the opportunity to develop into one of the on-court leaders of this team for the next few seasons.
Sophomore Addison Blosnick, coming off a strong freshman season, scored 7 points, while Avery Boyd scored 6 points. Other Vikings on the scoresheet were Hannah McDowell with 4 and freshman guard Ava Ray, who scored her first varsity field goal. Congrats Ava.
Hopewell will return to the court on Thursday for their home opener as they’ll host New Castle at 6:30 PM. Thursday will also be Youth Basketball Night at Hopewell. All Little Lady Vikings in-house players grades 3-6 will be recognized with their team during halftime. Free entry for all youth players.
