Mike Vukovcan There is no question at the high school level, especially in Section 4A WPIAL baseball, you need talented players to succeed, and Hopewell HC Morgan Singletary has certainly had an abundance of talented and dedicated players throughout his 7-year career at Hopewell.
From pitchers to disciplined hitters and elite defenders, the Vikings have consistently fielded rosters capable of competing with anyone in the Western Pennsylvania.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
But here’s the reality: the WPIAL is loaded with baseball talent as evidenced by the number of players that are selected yearly in the MLB Draft.
Every year, there are great athletes, travel ball standouts, and college prospects spread across nearly every section. Talent along does not separate programs year after year. Yet despite the constant competition, Hopewell Baseball has remained one of the most successful and respected programs in Western Pennsylvania for a long time.
So, what’s the difference?
What’s the secret sauce?
It starts with a commitment to excellence that begins at the very top of the program.
Most fans only watch the games. They see wins, the playoff runs, the big hits, and the celebrations after championships. What they don’t see are the countless hours that happen long before the first pitch is ever thrown.
They don’t see the early morning preparation, the late-night planning, the offseason workouts, the optional winter practices, the cage work, or the endless effort that goes into building a culture.
Morgan Singletary and his coaching staff, longtime pitching coach Rich Absey, Grant Smith, and Kaden Vandevert, have built something that goes far beyond baseball talent.
They’ve built a standard.
One of the most impressive aspects of the program is the leadership culture that Coach Singletary has intentionally created. Beyond baseball instruction, players have the opportunity participate in a preseason leadership program guided by Coach Singletary that includes leadership lessons, discussions, and videos focused on mindset, accountability, discipline, and personal growth. The program challenges players to think beyond statistics and wins, helping prepare them for life after baseball.
That investment in leadership is reinforced through the team’s book club initiative. Last year, players read Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great and this year’s book James Jerr’s Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life.
Those books are not random selections. They reinforce the exact culture Hopewell Baseball is trying to build, humility, consistency, discipline, teamwork, and embracing the daily process required to achieve greatness.
The commitment to development does not stop there. Coach Singletary also developed an optional offseason program designed to encourage players to invest in themselves long before opening day arrives. Central to that effort is the “300 Hour Club”, an initiative where players track their offseason commitment through weightlifting, skill development, and community service hours. Players can also earn additional points by participating in other sports and by achieving honor roll status academically.
That detail says everything about the philosophy of the program.
Hopewell Baseball is not simply trying to develop better players; it is trying to develop more complete young men. The message is clear: commitment matters, discipline matters, academics matter and being involved in your community matters.
I bet if you run into a player from the 2023 WPIAL Championship team and ask them to point to the turning point of that season, all of them will immediately point to the now famous speech from Coach Singletary after the Vikings limped into the playoffs as the No. 14 seed. At a moment when most outside the program had written Hopewell off, Singletary challenged his team with a simple message:
“America loves an underdog.”
That message quickly became the identity of the team.
What happened next has become part of Hopewell baseball history. The Vikings stormed through the WPIAL playoffs as a No. 14 seed and captured the WPIAL Championship. They followed that up with a deep PIAA playoff run, including an unforgettable victory over Cathedral Prep, the No. 14 ranked high school baseball team in the country at the time, a roster loaded with seven future Division 1 baseball players.
Yes, the 2023 Hopewell team had talent, and plenty of it. If you never saw Landon Fox pitch, you truly missed something special.
But even with the elite talent on the roster, the reality remains the same: talent alone does not sustain the level of success Hopewell Baseball has achieved over the years.
That takes coaching.
It takes leaders who know how to motivate players when adversity hits. It takes a staff that can get athletes to believe in themselves when nobody else does. It takes culture where players buy into something bigger than individual statistics or recognition. The 2023 season was not just a story about baseball talent, it was a story about preparation, belief, resilience, and a coaching staff that knew exactly how to bring the best out of its players when the stakes were highest.
Hopewell HC Morgan Singletary
Another element that separates Coach Singletary from many high school coaches is the level of detail and accountability he brings to the program. A math educator by profession, Singletary digs deep into advanced metrics and analytics to evaluate performances beyond traditional statistics. He tracks his own version of “quality at-bats”, placing emphasis on productive approaches, situational execution, and consistency rather than simply batting averages or box score numbers.
That analytical mindset is paired with an old school belief in personal accountability.
In today’s climate, where every coaching decision can quickly become fodder for social media posts and sideline criticism from parents, you will not find Coach Singletary trying to win over adults or manage public perception. It is simply not his style. His communication is directed almost exclusively to his players, with the expectation that players communicate information and responsibilities back to their parents, a philosophy rooted in preparing young men for accountability in the real world.
Yet despite that tough standard, he remains deeply invested in the broader Hopewell baseball community. Singletary is actively involved with the Hopewell Baseball Booster Club, regularly attending meetings and helping guide where fundraising dollars and program resources are invested to continue building a championship level experience for future generations of Vikings.
The amount of time these coaches dedicate to the program is second to none at Hopewell High School and likely throughout the WPIAL, in any sport. This is not a seasonal commitment. It is a year-round investment into young athletes and into the Hopewell community.
Programs do not sustain success over years simply because good players happen to come through the pipeline. Sustained success happens because players walk into an environment where expectations are already established. At Hopewell, players quickly learn that preparation matters, accountability matters, and effort matters.
That culture is reinforced every single day by the coaching staff.
What makes great coaches different is not just baseball knowledge. Plenty of coaches understand the game. Great coaches build belief. They create consistency. They establish accountability while still earning the respect of their players. Coach Singletary has managed to do all of that while sustaining excellence in one of the most competitive baseball environments in Pennsylvania.
The players deserve tremendous credit. They put in the work. They compete. They execute. They represent the school with pride. But behind every successful high school program is a group of coaches willing to sacrifice their own time for something bigger than themselves.
That’s the part many people never fully see.
The Hopewell coaching staff is not chasing headlines or attention. They are chasing excellence every single day, often behind the scenes and without recognition. Their investment in players extends beyond wins and losses. They are helping shape young men through discipline, teamwork, adversity, and accountability.
As it relates to the current 2026 Hopewell team, they are poised to write their own chapter in program history.
This year’s roster is deep with talent and leadership, anchored by a senior class of seven players who have been playing baseball together since they were seven years gold. That kind of chemistry cannot be manufactured. It is built over years of practices, tough losses, big wins, and shared experiences growing up together both on and off the field. There is trust within this group that shows up in the way they compete and carry themselves.
No one can predict how this season will ultimately end. High school baseball is unpredictable, especially in the WPIAL. But regardless of the final outcome, this season has already been a success because of the culture, leadership, and brotherhood this team represents. And if history has taught Hopewell baseball fans anything over the years, it is this: betting against Morgan Singletary and the Vikings is usually not a very smart idea.
That is the real foundation of Hopewell baseball.
Talent may help you win games.
Culture is what helps you win for years.
