Mike Vukovcan The 2025 376 Western PA Pony League playoffs opened up tonight as Coach Hoffman’s Hopewell team hosted Riverside at Raccoon Municipal Park.
These two teams matched up last week with Hopewell coming away with a tight 8-6 win.
Tonight, things weren’t close as Hopewell was dominant for 7 innings and came away with a 10-1 victory.
The two storylines tonight were the pitching of right-hander Luke Vukovcan and hitting from top to bottom in the Vikings lineup. Hopewell collected 12 hits and everyone in the lineup picked up a hit.
Vukovcan, Ryder Kostrick and Mason Santamaria led the way with 2 hits apiece. As far as the run producers, Kostrick and Ryan Gaguzis both had 2 RBI, while Vin Smetana, Santamaria and Vukovcan each picked up 1 RBI apiece.
Hopewell jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead after 2 innings and with the way Vukovcan was throwing, the game was essentially over.
Hopewell’s Luke Vukovcan
Coming off a performance against Central Valley where he allowed only 3 hits and struck out 15 batters in 5.2 innings, you’d think it would be impossible to better that.
However it happened as Vukovcan pitched a complete game, 1-hitter, allowing 1 unearned run and striking out a career-high 16 batters.
Vukovcan’s fastball was dominant as he was able to spot it both on the inside and outside corners.
Luke struck out the first 7 batters of the game before getting two ground ball outs to David Johnson at second base.
Vukovcan went on to strikeout two batters in the 4th, 5th innings before striking out the side in the 6th and striking out the last two batters of the game in the 7th.
For the game, Luke threw 89 pitches, 65 of which were strikes.
FINAL SCORE- Hopewell 10 Riverside 1
WINNING IS FUN!
Hopewell doesn’t have much time to enjoy the win as they’ll have to travel to take on No. 1 seed Beaver tomorrow.
