Where Hopewell Stands in the 376 Western Pa Pony League and Updated Team Batting/Pitching Leaders

The 2024 Pony League regular season is quickly coming to an end.

Following last night’s 19-2 win over Beaver, Coach Jamie Yurcina’s Hopewell Vikings have just 3 games remaining in the regular season.

The Vikings will close with 3 games next week: Sunday hosting Central Valley/Cercone, Monday hosting Beaver/Leyda and closing on the road Wednesday at Ellwood City/Nardone.

After that, the playoffs will begin the following week and Hopewell will enter with high expectations.

Hopewell will be one of the teams that qualify, it’s just a matter of what seeding they receive. From what we understand, if Hopewell wins their last 3 games, they’ll finish as the No. 4 and receive a first-round bye. The playoffs begin on June 24th. However, if they receive a bye, their first game will be on June 25th.

The 376 Western PA Pony League has 16 teams, and the top 12 teams qualify for the playoffs. It starts off as a single elimination tournament with the championship being a 3-game series.

Here’s the current standings entering today (June 14th).

Blackhawk/Martella: 9-2-2
Blackhawk/Haberman: 9-3-1
Ambridge: 9-3
Beaver-Leyda: 8-3
Hopewell:6-3-1
New Brighton: 8-5
CV/Cercone: 5-4
CV/McElhaney: 5-4-2
Freedom/Meyers: 3-3-2
Blackhawk/Francis: 6-7
Beaver Falls: 5-6
South Side: 4-6-1
Ellwood City/Nardone: 3-9
Beaver/Hamilton: 2-8-1
376 Pony Steinbach: 2-9-1
Riverside/Battaglia: 1-10-1 

When deciding the playoff seedings, season record will set seeding for the playoffs. In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker will be: 1) head-to-head 2) runs allowed for tied teams 3) run differential amongst teams tied.

With such a cluster of teams at the top of the standings, these final 3 games are obviously important for Hopewell in terms of what seeding they’ll earn.

With 12 games played, here’s a look at some in-season statistical leaders for Hopewell.

BATTING AVERAGE:
James Armstrong- .688
Collin Davis- .452
Jayvion Lindsey- .300

Runs Batted In:
Camden Hoth: 10
Armstrong: 9
Ryan Gaguzis: 8

Runs Scored:
Davis: 16
Armstrong: 13
Jaxsen Covalt: 10

On-Base Pct:
Armstrong: .783
Luke Vukovcan: .609
Davis: .553

OPS (On-Base/Slugging %):
Armstrong: 2.033
Davis: 1.037
Vukovcan: .859

Walks:
Vukovcan: 10
Jackson Yurcina: 10
Covalt: 8
Armstrong: 7
Andrew Arzberger: 7

Pitching/Strikeouts:
Armstrong: 35 strikeouts in 16 innings pitched
Davis: 23 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched