Hart earned the top spot overall in the girls' race Tuesday as all
14 West Michigan Conference schools gathered for a meet in Fremont.
The
Pirate boys finished fourth, intentionally using a pack-racing strategy
that resulted in their first eight finishers crossing the line within
two seconds of one another (and another two within six more seconds).
Shelby's boys placed 10th with Hesperia 13th, while neither of those
schools' girls teams had enough finishers for a team score.
Natalie
Rosema led the Hart girls, taking third place individually with a time
of 20:11. Alaina Schaner finished 10th (21:28), closely followed by Emma
Miller in 11th (21:30). Also for Hart, Luisa VanderZwaag finished 16th
(22:16) and Bryn Riley was 23rd (23:23).
Hart's boys team
focused on keeping the pack together, which meant its top runners didn't
run as fast as they normally do. Eight Pirates had times between 18:29
and 18:31, finishing 22nd through 29th. The eight runners, in order,
were Mason Opalewski, Carson Ackley, Silas Ackley, Alex Schiller, Aiden
Schaner, Owen VanderVlucht, Timothy Wolff and Julian Lopez. Grant Ackley
and Trevor Vander Kodde closely followed them, finishing 33rd and 34th.
Parker
Weirich led Shelby's boys with a 14th-place finish and a time of 17:50.
Brycen Brown finished 32nd and had a time of 18:36. Other scoring
Tigers were Jaciel Moreno (80th, 21:08), Emilio Bustos (94th, 23:00) and
Jackson Sines (102nd, 24:52). Tiger girls finishers were Noel Parker in
ninth place (21:14), Kathryn Beyer in 18th (22:59), Ava Lamberg in 50th
(27:30) and Michelle Peterson (53rd, 28:04).
For Hesperia,
Andy Lopez-Garcia led the team with a 72nd-place finish (20:43). Tony
Lopez-Garcia took 82nd place (21:37), followed by Zed Bierman in 87th
(22:15). Drea Slosman (97th, 23:42) and Kurtis Pierce (113th, 28:12)
also scored. For the Panther girls, Rokhaya Ruhstorfer (51st, 27:35) and
Amelia Hutson (72nd, 37:28) finished.
