Hopewell baseball team upsets Valley in WPIAL quarters

By: Dave Mackall
Monday, May 18, 2026 | 10:05 PM

The Vikings are rolling. To be clear, that’s the Hopewell Vikings.

No. 6 seed Hopewell moved a step closer Monday night to its third WPIAL baseball championship since 2021 under coach Morgan Singletary, upsetting the third-seeded Valley Vikings, 7-1, in a Class 4A quarterfinals game at West Mifflin High School.

Senior right-hander Kingston Krotec scattered nine hits in a complete-game performance for his second playoff victory in eight days, and Charles Smetana and Logan Triscila each drove in a pair of runs for Hopewell (16-5), which won for the sixth time in a row and eighth in the past nine games.

“Our defense was there tonight, and stuff like that’s how you win championships,” Singletary said. “It’s a big game in the playoffs. The defense showed up. (Valley) started making some solid contact later in the game, a lot of loud outs.

“But in the end, that’s all they are is loud outs.”

Hopewell will meet No. 2 Elizabeth Forward in the semifinals Wednesday at a site and time to be determined. The Warriors dumped No. 7 West Mifflin, 5-1, in quarterfinals earlier in the day at Norwin.

Krotec walked one and struck out three, following up a solid start March 11 in a 5-3 victory over No. 11 Ringgold.

In his latest start, he convinced Montgomery to keep him in the game when Valley rallied for its only run in the fifth, despite getting four runners on three hits and an error before leaving the bases loaded.

“All season, I’ve been getting in jams and I worked out of them,” Krotec said. “Coach came out and tried to take me out (in the fifth), and I just said, ‘No, this is my game.’ ”

Center fielder Ben McDonald made the first of two spectacular running catches to end the fifth-inning threat. McDonald also made a running grab in the sixth before Krotec caught a comebacker and fired to second to start an inning-ending double play.

Valley outhit Hopewell, 9-8, but couldn’t get them at key times.

“He is one of the best competitors on the team,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery said he was close to lifting Krotec in the fifth but stayed with him.

“I wanted to find out if he wanted to finish it,” Montgomery said. “He definitely wanted to. He’s a senior. We’ve been riding him all season. It was, ‘I’m going to finish this.’ I said, ‘Ok, finish it,’ and he did.”

Hopewell took advantage of errors, walks and hit-batsmen to build a 4-0 lead through three innings. When Valley (14-6) cut it to 4-1 in the fifth, coach Jaron Minford saw an opening.

But Hopewell responded with two runs in the sixth to go up 6-1.

“We barreled the ball a lot. Unfortunately, right at them,” Minford said. “They made great plays in the field. Sometimes, it’s a game of inches.”

Tags: Hopewell, Valley