Kittanning Hopi Take Down the West Shamokin Arctic Wolves

by Jake DeLuca

What started off as a close low scoring game in the first two innings, turned into an early stoppage, as the Kittanning Hopi take down the West Shamokin Arctic Wolves.

At the end of two innings the game was knotted up at 1-1, but that’s when it all changed. The Hopi took the field in the third inning and never looked back. The runs started pouring in after Seth Crawford doubled to deep center field. The Hopi then went on a roll, scoring 10 runs before Dustin Coleman put the cherry on top in the form of a grand slam.

Hopi manager Pete Gawlinski was very proud of how his team played this game.

“I think all nine batters had hits tonight so I think that’s the first time we did that in a game this season, and this is our second game with no errors. If you get 11 and 12 year olds to play error free baseball, you have a pretty good chance to win the game.”

Along with some impressive offense, the Hopi had a good performance from their pitcher, Hayden Brink. Hayden allowed only one run through four innings, and even with a high pitch count (82), he managed to stay calm, cool, and collected to get his team out of Montbell Field with a win.

After reflecting on the team’s overall performance so far this season, Gawlinski had this to say.

“I’m just real happy, we’ve had a couple rain outs recently so it’s been hard to get on the field. I’m just happy they came out and they played with emotion right from the start. It’s hard to motivate kids this age sometimes, but I’m real proud. Dustin works very hard, they all work very hard, but he’s a good kid to get the grand slam again. It just kind of puts the exclamation point on a good game. It went from being a good game to a great game, so that was real nice.”