Mike Vukovcan Baseball season in Hopewell is in full swing!
The Vikings High School and Junior High programs have been open for a month now and on Monday, the Hopewell Youth Baseball season opened up their 2025 Spring season.
At the Kane Road Complex, we had two teams in action while others started on their seasons on the road.
One of those teams were Coach Justin Daley’s Coach Pitch Team, which consists of 7- and 8-year-olds and even a few 6-year-olds. Coach Daley is a huge asset to Hopewell Youth Baseball as he’s a tremendous teacher of the game and is a tireless worker. Both of those things are very important at this stage of the kid’s development.
Last night’s game didn’t go as planned as Ambridge came away with an 8-1 victory.
At this age, while it’s nice to win, it’s truly not important with the most important thing being skill development, especially for the 8-year-olds who will be moving on to kids pitch next season.
In any game that you play and regardless of the outcome, positives can be taken from it, which is what Coach Daley, and his staff will be looking at.
Positives from Hopewell’s Awesome Electrical Coach Pitch Team:
*After giving up 5 runs in the first inning, Hopewell only gave up 3 runs the rest of the way as the defense really improved.
*Speaking of defense, Hopewell’s defense turned a double play, as 1st baseman Hudson Lavia snagged a line drive going up the first base line, caught it and ran over and stepped on first to double up the runner. Big-time play Hudson!
*Speaking of big-time, Hudson’s sister, Harper, was arguably the best defensive player on the field last evening for either team. In the 5th inning, Harper made all 3 outs while playing first base. The first out came from ground ball in the hole between first and second, where she fielded it and beat the runner to the bag. Then, the next batter hit a line drive that she calmy stood in front of and caught. Then to close out the inning, Harper charged a softly hit ball and tagged the runner running up the first base line. You got my game ball last night Harper!
*Although the plays didn’t result always result in outs, 6-year-old Brady Daley had a solid game defensively, especially while playing the challenging position of 3rd base. A couple of times, Brady calmly fielded his position and ran over to the base for a force out, while one other players, he cleanly fielded the grounders and threw to either second or first base. While they didn’t result in outs, the key was making the original play and knowing immediately where to go with the ball. If that continues, trust me, the outs will come.
*Likely because it was the opening game and being so anxious to hit in a game, the bats were a bit silent last night. With the work that they’ve already put in and will continue to put in, I wouldn’t be surprised if they breakout in their next game against Beaver Falls. Hopewell did collect 7 hits last night: Brady Daley (2 hits), Will Vukovcan (2 hits), Hudson Lavia (1 hit), Cameron Baker (1 hit) and Max Kokan (1 hit). Hopewell’s RBI getter last night was Cameron Baker, courtesy an RBI single, which drove in Hudson Lavia.
Hopewell’s Awesome Electrical Team will have their home opener tomorrow night at 6 PM when they host Beaver Falls.
