Mike Vukovcan SHENANGO HS– The Hopewell HS baseball team entered this week with a bye week, in the event they needed to make up any section games from earlier this season.
Since that wasn’t needed, HC Morgan Singletary didn’t want his players to have an entire week off and decided to challenge them with a couple of solid non-section games.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
On Wednesday, they defeated Shaler, 7-2, and keep in mind, Shaler had won 2 of the last 3 WPIAL championships in 5A.
A&S Federal Credit Union are proud sponsors of Hopewell Boys and Girls High School, Junior High and Youth Sports.
This afternoon, the Vikings traveled to take on a Shenango team that was 9-2 and tied for first place in Class 2A with a record of 5-1.
It didn’t end up being much of a game as Hopewell smacked Shenango, 17-3 (in 6 innings). This is the fourth time in their last six games that Hopewell has scored 10+ runs in a game.
Another impressive number is that this marks the 9th time in their 11 games this season that the Hopewell pitched have held the opposition to 3 runs or less.
The 17 runs were Hopewell’s highest run total this season and most in a game since a 19-0 win over Freedom back in 2019.
The victory was Hopewell’s 7th in a row and improves their record to 8-3. In case you were wondering, the 7-game win streak is Hopewell’s longest since the 2023 season, the year in which they won the WPIAL championship.
When your team scored 17 runs, you start the game recap by talking about the offense and today Hopewell banged out 15 hits.
The star at the plate was senior centerfielder Ben McDonald, who went 3-4, including a 3-run home run to right field. That was McDonald’s 3rd HR of the season and his second straight game with a homer. Ben scored 4 runs, drove in 3 runs and also walked.
Four Hopewell hits collected 2 hits apiece- Drew Donovan, Charlie Smetana, James Gill and Jake Knobloch. Collin Davis, Brody McCullough, Kingston Krotec and Jayvion Lindsey also collected a hit.
RBI getters for Hopewell were- McDonald (3), Knobloch (2), Krotec (2), Donovan (2), McCullough (1), Smetana (1), Gill (1) and Lindsey (1).
The beneficiary of this offensive support was Donovan, who picked up his first win of the season. With McDonald, Krotec and Payton Korker not able to pitch today, Donovan stepped up big-time for his team, going 5 innings, allowing 5 hits, 2 earned runs and striking out 3 batters. Singletary called upon Knobloch to pitch the last inning as he closed out the Hopewell win.
This team will get the weekend off before starting a very important 2-game section series on Monday at home against Hampton.
