Hopewell HS Football

As the high school football season gets closer, Vikings Sports Now continues with our position-by-position preview of the 2025 Hopewell Vikings.

Earlier in the week, we gave a little preview of the Vikings defensive line and linebackers, so today, we’ll take a look at the secondary.

With the way offenses have evolved and rely heavily on their passing games, Hopewell’s ability to defend the pass and prevent big plays down the field will be important.

The encouraging thing is that Hopewell’s secondary will return many players from last season and have also added a huge talent.

Earlier in the summer, VSN told you about the awful news of senior defensive back Julian Baldwin breaking his leg, which will force him to miss the entire season.

Baldwin was the ‘quarterback’ and vocal leader of the secondary, making all of the calls, so someone will need to step up to do that.

This is no doubt an unfortunate loss, but Hopewell returns a lot of talent and will have to employee the ‘next man up’ mentality.

VSN was able to talk with Hopewell HC Matt Mottes about some of the players he’ll be relying on in the secondary this season.

While Hopewell will be down Baldwin, they will be getting back a player that missed all of last season with a broken ankle in senior Kingston Krotec. Throughout his high school career, Krotec has been a quarterback but that will change this season as he’ll play on both sides of the ball, at safety and wide receiver.

“Having Kingston back this season will be huge for us,” said Mottes. “We missed him a lot last year and with his injury, we threw James (Armstrong) into the fire, which he responded pretty well. This year, I expect Kingston to play a lot on both sides of the ball. I’ve said this time and time again; he’s one of the best athletes on our team. I’m excited to see what he does this year.”

Like with DL Keith Young (transfer from Keystone Oaks), the addition of sophomore Nasir Wade (transfer from Aliquippa) will be a huge impact on both sides of the ball. Wade is a player with tremendous speed and will be someone that will make a ton of plays on both sides of the ball. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he’s a threat to go the distance every time he touches the ball. Despite just starting his sophomore season, Wade already holds two D-1 offers.

Hopewell’s Nasir Wade and James Armstrong

“Adding Nasir Wade at safety, I think will be a really big help for us,” said Mottes. “Nasir is someone with a very high football IQ. He breaks on the ball extremely well and looks great when he does it. He’s someone that’s able to see a play as it’s developing. So far, I’ve really liked what I’ve seen from him.”

As far as the rest of the Hopewell secondary, the biggest strength that they appear to have is depth.

“With Julian being out for most of the season, we’re going to have a void there but having a returning starter like Josh Brunton is going to be big, because he’ll step up. Mike Gargiulo, a kid that came out late last year, is going to be a senior this year and I expect big things out of him. Vinny Boris is our utility man and is able to do whatever we ask of him. He’s a kid that always works hard and I expect him to be on the field as a defensive back as well. Another player that I haven’t brought up yet is Brian Olden; he’s a gifted young player that I believe can compete at a high level as long as he stays focused.”

“Like we have upfront, I believe we’ll have a constant rotation of depth,” said Mottes. “A lot of coaches would give anything to have 20 to 25 kids that are capable of playing on a Friday night.”

On Tuesday, Vikings Sports Now started our look at each position on the Hopewell Vikings 2025 football team by looking at the defensive line.

With the likes of Keith Young, Brian McCabe, Nick Thomas, Aris Haniotes, etc. the defensive line will be one of if not the deepest position on the team.

By having such a productive defensive line, the other parts of the defensive will no doubt benefit. If the guys up front can get to the quarterback or at least pressure them, that will mean less time that the defensive backs have to stay with the wide receivers.

The other guys on defense that will benefit from a strong defensive line are the Hopewell linebackers. With the opposing offensive line working to matchup up with the DL, the Viking linebackers will have more room to find space to attack the opposing quarterback and running backs.

During our recent conversation, Hopewell HC Matt Mottes went over some of the names you’ll see at the linebacker position.

“We have Justin Obeldobel returning, we have Zander Muzy returning,” said Coach Mottes. “Zander led the linebackers in sacks last year and also had two defensive touchdowns. We’ve added George Tafkov (from Keystone Oaks).  I’ve hoping that Grant Houy can do some things for us this year. He’s actually one of our best tacklers.”

“We’ve been flirting with the idea of maybe moving Avery Bokor down to outside linebacker. Avery has gained some nice size over the off-season and with his speed, size and toughness, I think he can be an asset at linebacker for us. Anytime you can return nine defensive starters returning, it’s always a good thing.”

Hopewell will take on Ellwood City in a scrimmage on August 16th, followed by the season opener at Riverside on August 22nd. The 2025 Home Opener will take place on August 29th against New Castle.

Back on June 14th of 2024, Matt Mottes saw his role with the Hopewell High School football team drastically change.

Originally, Mottes was hired by then head coach John Rosa to become Hopewell’s defensive coordinator. That changed later in the summer as Rosa was hired to become athletic director at Winchester Thurston High School.

Now, instead of just worrying about how to try the opposing offenses and coming up with a gameplan to do it, Mottes was now in charge of running the entire program.

Considering this was his first head coaching position and although he still received plenty of assistance and valuable advice from Rosa, Mottes was learning on the job.

All things considered, 2024 was a success as Hopewell came within a game of qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 2012 and Mottes and his staff laid a solid foundation and a culture for future teams.

With the start of Hopewell’s season just 29 days away, Vikings Sports Now spent some time last night with Coach Mottes and asked him about a number of topics that we’ll be writing about in the upcoming days.

First thing we discussed was his situation entering year two as a coach and how he’s different, what he learned and the direction of the Hopewell Vikings football program.

“Last year, I was hoping that our team would be competitive,” said Mottes. “This year, I fully expect us to be competitive. We lost some games last year in the second half and two or three of those we could’ve, not saying we should’ve, but could have won. This year, when we get in a tight game, I’m going to expect us to win those types of games.”

Team aside, I followed up by asking how is Matt Mottes the head coach different today then he was a year ago?

“Obviously, I have to adapt to my players. I’ll pick up a little of their personality and hopefully they pick up a lot of mine. As far as how strict I am, I don’t know if I’ll change, I might be a little stricter and harder on them because we have a big bullseye on our back this year. People are expecting us to be good and to be honest, we haven’t really done anything to deserve that type of credit.”

“But I also know the kids better. I know which ones need a hug and I know which ones need a kick in the rear end. That’s something that is different than last year because this year I know the players I’ll need to put my arm around.”

Coaching football is nothing new to Mottes as he’s served as an assistant for plenty of years with different programs. Being a head coach and the man in charge was a change and a learning experience for Mottes.

“It’s important to surround yourself with good people, trust them, listen to them because they only have your best interest at heart. If it’s the boosters, your assistant coaches or the leaders on your football team, you have to trust them.”

2024 was also different for Mottes because it didn’t end with a team that he was part of winning. Being a former Aliquippa player and as an assistant with various other programs, winning has always followed and it’s in his DNA. After laying the groundwork last season, Mottes is looking forward to what’s in the future for Hopewell Vikings football, not only this year but in the years to come.

“Believe it or not, I liked to fly under the radar, I like to shock people,” said Mottes. “I’ve had different conversations with different coaches and all I hear about is how good we should be. That’s great and I’m glad everyone else has that expectation for us. Hopefully we meet our goals, and we can play up to our expectations and what everyone’s expectation are for us and the ones we’ve set for ourselves.”

The Hopewell Vikings will open the 2025 season on the road when they travel to Riverside (August 22nd), which will be followed by the home opener on August 29th against New Castle.