Mike Vukovcan ECONOMY– The Hopewell 8-Year-Old All-Star team entered bracket play in the Ambridge All-Star Tournament with a record of 1-1.
Their first opponent this morning in the quarterfinals was a rematch against Moon. On paper, this looked like a tough matchup for Hopewell considering Moon defeated them yesterday, 13-4.
But as the saying goes, ‘That’s why they play the game on the field and not on paper”.
Led by tremendous hitting from everyone in the lineup, Hopewell banged out collected 22 hits and defeated Moon this morning, 14-11.
Moon was leading 7-6 going to the 4th inning and that’s when the game changed as Hopewell put up 6 runs in the top of the 4th inning to take control of the game.
Congratulations to Brody Tournay, who clubbed a deep home run to centerfield in the 5th inning for the Vikings. This was Tournay’s 6th home run this All-Star season for Hopewell. I saw Brody play every game last season and you saw the raw power that he possessed. A year later and after plenty of work in the off-season, Brody has put everything together and is a name to watch for the future.
INSIDE HOPEWELL’S BOX SCORE:
*Grayden McNally, Declan Rinaldi and Cam Winiarski led the way with 3 hits apiece. Winiarski continues to swing the bat well as yesterday, he hit his first home run. Five Hopewell players had 2 hits apiece this morning- Harper Lavia, Colton Eiler, Obie DeCanio, August Arostegui and Tournay.
*The RBI getters against Moon were- Tournay with 4, McNally with 2, Eiler with 2 and Rinaldi, Orie, Arostegui, DeCanio, Harper Lavia and Winiarski each with 1.
McNally did a tremendous job from the leadoff spot going 3 for 3, with 3 runs scored and 2 RBIs. Grayden is another player I’m very familiar with and the best way to describe him is a ‘Gamer”. Very fundamentally sound, hits to the gaps and most importantly, a complete team player.
The Hopewell 8-year-old team advances to the semifinals where they’ll take on North Fayette at 12:30 PM.
