Hopewell Baseball
WPIAL Playoffs: Hopewell Baseball Loses to Latrobe, 3-2, in Extra Innings
The Hopewell Vikings won’t be repeating as WPIAL Class 4A but it wasn’t because of a lack of effort or grit.
The Vikings, who entered as the No. 12 seed, battled back but lost 3-2 in extra innings in heart breaking fashion.
Hopewell entered the last inning trailing 2-0 and were actually getting no-hit but they rallied to tie the game.
Ben McDonald led off with a walk and came around to score on an RBI double by Charlie Smetana. Then with runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs and their season on the line, senior Tyler Triscila came through with an RBI single to tie the game at 2.
Moving ahead to the bottom of the 8th inning, Latrobe’s first two batters reached (walk and single). Then after Kingston Krotec got an out at second, the next Latrobe batter reached to the load the bases with just one out.
Hopewell coach Morgan Singletary then went to his bullpen to bring in his closer Ben McDonald. He was also having his lefty, McDonald, face a lefty in Luke Nipar-Smith. Unfortunately on a 3-2 pitch, McDonald hit Smith to bring in the game-winning run.
Hopewell received great pitching and played an errorless game in the field. Unfortunately, they could only muster two hits in 8 innings.
David Medich started for Hopewell and as he was strong and reliable as he was all season. The junior went 5 innings, allowing 6 hits, 2 earned runs, 3 walks and 2 strikeouts. Krotec followed him up going 2.1 innings, giving up 1 hit, 1 earned run and striking out 3.
Today was disappointing but this team played well all season and have a lot to be excited about for the future.
The Vikings will be losing seniors John Vescio, Tyler Triscila and Lucas Walton but will return key contributors in Krotec, McDonald, Smetana, Logan Triscila, Drew Donovan, Zach Gigliotti, Medich and could possibly get some sort of contribution from a couple 8th graders.
Most importantly, with a nucleus of a pitching staff like Medich, Krotec, McDonald, Jake Knoboch, etc., Hopewell will give themselves a chance to win a lot of games.
