Mike Vukovcan HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP- While the result isn’t what the team wanted, there very plenty of positives to take from Hopewell’s game against Beaver.
The Vikings Middle School team had their 2025 Home Opener yesterday at the Junior High Field and dropped a 4-1 decision to the Bobcats.
Now that the bad news is out of the way, there were plenty of good things that Coach BJ Rankin and his staff will be able to take from the game.
OUTSTANDING PITCHING:
First and foremost was the pitching that he received. In the opener against Montour, Hopewell gave up 12 runs as opposed to just 4 yesterday against Beaver.
Ryder Kostrick started for Hopewell and was outstanding. After the first inning jitters were out of the way, Kostrick was dominant on the mound as he pitched 3 innings, allowing only 3 hits, 1 walk and 4 strikeouts. Both runs that Ryder allowed in the 1st inning were unearned.
Vikings Sports Now was in attendance yesterday and Kostrick seemingly got better every inning. In his 3 innings and 50 pitches, Kostrick’s fastball was electric and combining that with this slider made him very difficult to hit.
Other Hopewell pitchers on Friday were Anthony Ventresca, Channing Yesionek and Liam Rankin.
After Kostrick’s velocity, Ventresca came on in the 4th and was effective with his change in pitching velocity. Ventresca went 1 inning, allowing 2 hits, 2 earned runs, 0 walks and struck out a batter.
Yesionek entered in the 5th inning and like Kostrick, was outstanding. Channing showed tremendous poise for it being his first outing of the season. He got in a couple of jams but each time, stayed mentally tough and pitched his way out of it. Yesionek has nice velocity on his fastball, has an effective breaking pitch and has the demeanor you want in a pitcher. Yesionek pitched 2.1 innings, allowing 1 hit, 0 runs, 3 walks, struck out 4 batters and threw 45 pitches.
Liam Rankin relieved him in the 7th inning and recorded the final two outs. Rankin has pitched in both games this season and hasn’t allowed a run in 1.2 innings pitched.
SOLID DEFENSE:
Although 2 errors were recorded in the scorebook, Hopewell’s defenders played a solid overall game. Beaver is a team that can hit and puts the ball in play, so Hopewell needed to bring their gloves and for a large majority of the game they did just that.
Just some of the players that made above average plays in the field (I apologize if I miss someone as I tried to keep track) were: Kostrick on a line drive right back to the mound, Brandon Cecchini with the defensive play of the game as he charged in to make a headfirst sliding catch in left field, Vin Smetana was a rock at shortstop, David Johnson made an above average running catch from second base out to short right field, Grey McIllvain made two solid plays from 3rd base and Connor Reed showed nice range when he was moved to first base.
If this pitching and defense continues for Hopewell, the wins will surely come.
HITING REVIEW:
For the game, Hopewell recorded only 4 hits as Tyler Hoffman, Kostrick, Cecchini and McIIvain all recorded singles. While the hit total was low, that doesn’t mean that Hopewell didn’t record some solid at-bats. Credit to Beaver for playing solid defense.
Smetana was robbed of a hit by the Beaver left fielder on a line drive, in his second at-bat, Kostrick smoked a ball to deep center field, McIllvain smashed a line drive back up the middle but the Beaver pitcher got his glove up and snagged it and robbed Grey of a single and the Beaver second baseman snared what looked to be a line drive single by Yesionek.
Another positive was that of their 27 at-bats, Hopewell only struck out 6 times.
The Hopewell Middle School team will have two games next week- Wednesday at Blackhawk and then Friday, they’ll host New Castle.
HOPEWELL 3 STARS OF THE GAME:
Third Star ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
Grey McIllvain- Grey had a solid game displaying nice defense and a good arm at 3rd base and had two really good at-bats.
2nd Star ⭐️⭐️
Channing Yesionek- As mentioned earlier, big-time pitching effort displayed by Channing.
First Star ⭐️
Ryder Kostrick- Ryder was the top player on the field both offensive and defensively for Hopewell. His pitching was lights out.
