Mike Vukovcan Kids that grow up playing sports, dream one day of becoming major league/professional athletes and traveling around playing in major venues.
The fortunate ones that get to live out that dream are very few so if you get a chance to experience something like it, it would still be special.
Hopewell softball and youth baseball is sponsored by Lisa McCoy, your neighborhood State Farm agent.
This weekend, two members of the Hopewell HS Baseball program were in Virginia competing with their travel baseball program, the Beaver Valley Red 15U team.
Sophomores Luke Vukovcan and Andrew Arzberger took part in the Hokie Classic, and the neat part is that games were played at Radford University and Virginia Tech University, two D-1 programs.
The facilities and turfed fields that these two played were incredible, especially at Virginia Tech. For example, the scoreboard at Virginia Tech showed pitch by pitch stats, such as MPH of the pitcher, spin rate, exit velo, etc. Getting to see how fast each pitch was being thrown was something everyone enjoyed.
To make things even more memorable, both Vukovcan and Arzberger played well and to top the incredible weekend off, Beaver Valley Red were champions of the Hokie Classic.
The tournament consisted of 5 games, although Vukovcan only played in 3 games (returned home to Hopewell for his brother’s graduation party).
Here are the combined stats, batting and pitching, for the two players:
Arzberger (5 games): 3-for-12 with a 2B, 3 RBI, run scored. Andrew also pitched 2 innings, allowing 2 hits, 5 runs and 1 K.
Vukovcan (3 games): 4-for-6 with a 3B, 2 RBI, a walk and was hit by a pitch. Luke pitched 4 innings, allowing 0 hits, 2 ER and 3 K’s.
It was pretty neat to see both players record hits at these venues, not to mention extra base hits. Here were a couple of Vukovcan’s hits, including the triple.
Established in 1986, family owned and serving the Beaver County community for over 40 years. Serving breakfast favorites and lunch specials.
One other thing to show is the way third game of the weekend ended. BV was winning 8-7 in the last innings, but the opposing team had the tying run on second base with 2 outs.
The hitter then hit a sharp single to center field, but BV center field Max Torboli fielded the ball quickly and threw an absolute pea to Vukovcan at the plate, who applied the tag. Game Over!
Arzberger and Vukovcan are fortunate to be members of this really talented Beaver Valley Red squad as it’s comprised of very talented players throughout the WPIAL and Ohio.
The quality depth of the pitching from top to bottom is incredible with players such as Blake Swinning, Carson Gates (Burrell), Christian Meyer (North Catholic HS), Dante Cascavilla (Mohawk), Dylan Hamilton (Beaver HS)Â and Gavin Latchaw (Beaver HS).
All of these players just finished their freshman seasons and will be names to watch over the upcoming years in the WPIAL (Swinning is from Ohio).
The other fun thing is that the entire roster can hit so no matter where you are in the lineup, scoring runs is a legitimate possibility.
Hitting Leaders from the Weekend:
Swinning: 8-for-13
Harvey: 4 hits and 7 RBIs
Hamilton: 6-for-13
Meyer: 2 hits, 4 RBI
Glaser: 4 hits, 4 RBI
Torboli: 5-for-10
Gates: 3 hits and 4 RBI
By the way, Virginia Tech and Radford won’t be the only big-time venues that this team plays in this summer season. In a couple of weeks, BV Red 15U will travel to South Bend, Indiana to play at Notre Dame.
Lifetime memories were definitely made over the weekend!
