HART — Part of the beauty of having far more firepower than your conference competition is that it gives you the opportunity to experiment. The Hart Pirate boys have been utilizing that option throughout West Michigan Conference season and did so again in Tuesday's home jamboree win.
The Pirates opened WMC action at the 14-school Mega Meet in Fremont working on pack running rather than focusing on scoring specific times. Tuesday's jamboree saw lead runner Silas Ackley experiment with how he prepared his body for the race, eating closer to race time than he usually does.
Ackley still raced well, placing second overall with a time of 16:25.9, but said he got a cramp a little past the halfway mark of the race. He won't be repeating that experiment. He also raced with different shoes, ones suited to the golf cart paths that are plentiful on The Colonial Golf Course.
Ackley said it wasn't the Pirates' best day overall, but there was still no stopping them as they topped second-place Whitehall by a healthy 38-81 margin.
Hart's goal has been clear all season: A state title. It's in position to accomplish that goal, having competed well against top-ranked Hanover-Horton at Saturday's Shepherd Invitational. The Pirates lost by six points, but Ackley said the team could easily have performed better because his cousin Carson Ackley, who depending on the day can be the Pirates' No. 2 or No. 3 boys runner, has to fight through allergy issues on courses with tall grass, like Shepherd's. The Michigan International Speedway course at the state meet, notably, does not have tall grass.
"We'll probably race a lot better (at state)," Ackley said. "If (Carson) would've run his PR time at Shepherd, we would have beaten them. If we can just have a good race for everyone, we should beat them."
Silas added that the Pirates continue to work on their pack running - state titles can be decided by just a couple of seconds for one runner due to the number of racers in the field - and their in-race strategies.
"We just try to figure out how we're going to race, how we're going to get out," Ackley said. "Make sure we don't get out too fast, make sure we don't get out too slow, experiment with the races before and just find what's best for us and stay consistent."
Ackley was one of four Pirate boys to place in the top 10. Timothy Wolff finished in seventh place and had a time of 16:49.5, followed by Trevor Vander Kodde in eighth place (16:59.6) and Owen VanderVlucht in ninth (17:10.7). Carson Ackley finished 12th (17:16.2), followed immediately by Mason Opalewski, Alex Schiller and Aiden Schaner.
The girls' race was far more dramatic, with the Pirates eking out a three-point win over Ludington, 38-41. All five Hart scorers placed in the top 13, led as usual by Natalie Rosema, who was third. Her time was 20:10.5. Bryn Riley followed with a season best time of 20:56.9, good for fourth place, and Luisa VanderZwaag also had a season best time of 21:16.5 to finish seventh. Alaina Schaner was 11th (21:45.6) and Emma Miller finished 13th (22:14.1).
