Record Rain Having Huge Impact on Outdoor Sports in Hopewell

The popular phrase ‘Rain Rain Go Away Come Back Another Day’ is certainly being chanted all throughout Western Pennsylvania this week following the historic amount of rainfall.

For some perspective, Hopewell Sports Nation reached out to WTAE Meteorologist Jeff Verszyla, who provided us with some eye-opening numbers.

Verszyla tells us that in the timeframe of 1871-2024, Pittsburgh currently has the wettest start to a year (through April 4th) on record. The official precipitation total is 14.39″ through April 4th, the average is 9.17″.

The Month-by-Month Breakdown:
January 5.28″
February 1.76″
March 3.25
April (so far) 4.10″

The rain has been nonstop for nearly a week which has resulted in any outdoor sporting event being postponed. This is obviously torture for athletic directors as they now must try and look for time to try and reschedule these games.

The Hopewell Vikings baseball team had two scheduled games this week against Beaver, the Junior High baseball team were scheduled to Northgate, while the Softball team has a game scheduled tomorrow at Ellwood City.

As things stand now, the high school baseball team is trying to reschedule their games against Beaver on Friday and Saturday. Of course, this will all be contingent upon the fields being in proper condition to be played on.

HSN reached out to Vikings Baseball Coach Morgan Singletary to get his take on the rain’s impact on his team.

“The weather has a big impact on baseball,” said Singletary. “We are used to games getting rescheduled and canceled due to the weather. It is something we talk about with the players. At the start of the season, we tell them to be ready to practice inside, outside on the turf, or outside on the field every day. When games start, we tell them to be prepared to play a game, home or away, every day because we don’t know when will need to adjust.”

“When the weather is bad and we can’t go outside, we work on finding ways to get better. We can’t control the weather and we work to focus on the things we can control. It is definitely inconvenient, but it is part of the season.”

This also applies to community sports organizations such as youth baseball and soccer, who have seen their fields flooded and will need a lot of sunshine and work to restore.

No sports field has been impacted more than the Hopewell Soccer Club Fields on Service Creek Road. The pictures of the amount of rain that has piled up on these fields is incredible.

”Hopewell Soccer Club currently has in-house games scheduled for Saturday 4/6 and travel games on Sunday 4/7,” Ed Russman/Hopewell Youth Soccer. “The soccer fields have been severely impacted by the flooding. The board has been in constant communication as they continuously observe the conditions of the fields. A decision on if in-house games will occur hopes to be made by Friday 4/5 and Saturday 4/6 for travel games.”

As things stand now, the games scheduled for Saturday morning are still on, but of course, that is all subject to change.