BROOKLYN — Hart's depth this season was tremendous, so much so that retired former coach Terry Tatro, who led the Pirate boys to their lone state title in 2022, dubbed this year's team better than that one. That depth drove the Pirates all season, and while it didn't quite get them to the top of the heap at Saturday's Division 3 state cross-country finals at Michigan International Speedway, it also enabled them to bring home some hardware - the MHSAA runner-up trophy.
The Pirates' team score of 141 points accomplished a team goal of topping rival Hanover-Horton, which placed third, but defending champ Charlevoix, which entered the day ranked No. 3 behind both teams, delivered a clutch performance just like it did in 2025 and topped the field with 123 points.
The difference, Hart coach Calvin Ackley said, was the Red Rayders' owning two "low sticks" up top. Their top runner, Hunter Eaton, finished fifth overall, and a teammate, Ryder Hopkins, also placed ahead of any Pirate by taking 22nd.
"That's hard to overcome," Ackley said. "They did this last year...To get second is bittersweet, but we'll take it."
Junior Silas Ackley was the Pirates' lone all-state runner in the boys' race, scoring a 25th-place finish with a time of 16:12.0, his third-best career time and only 5.4 seconds off his mark at the regional meet.
Ackley hasn't always been Hart's lead runner this year, but he often has been, and he said that, despite battling a cough this week, he entered Saturday focused on maintaining that and bringing his teammates along with him.
"(I was) thinking about my team, thinking about them and working through it, just knowing that they needed me, and I needed them to go faster," Silas said. "I was planning on starting out in the front of the boys and having them stay on me and help them push through it with me and just draft off me, so we could do better as a team."
Hart is, of course, no stranger to the state finals course, and senior Mason Opalewski said it's a different atmosphere, especially for a team trying to maximize its score, due to the adrenaline and traffic.
"You're working with a lot of people around you, so you have to be strategic about it, not go out too fast," Opalewski said. "A lot of people in the race go out really fast, so you just have to be in your race, not other people's."
Opalewski ran his second-best career time, 16:26.7, to finish 41st, right in front of teammate Trevor Vander Kodde, whose 16:26.8 marked a personal best.
It's not unheard of to run a PR at state - six D-3 all-state runners did it - but to do so right after regionals at Benzie Central, a course coach Ackley estimated is about 20 seconds faster, is an impressive feat. Yet it was one he almost expected from Vander Kodde after the junior was frustrated with his regional run, despite setting a PR there too.
"I had a sense he was going to do that when we were running out (for warmups)," Ackley said. "He ran great."
"I knew where I was supposed to be at regionals, and that was not where I was at," Vander Kodde added. "I knew I had to focus a little bit more. I had to do everything right, do the little things, eating, sleeping, just focus on those things. I just felt so much better during the race, and I knew I was (running) a good time."
Timothy Wolff placed in the top 50, coming in 48th with a time of 16:29.9, and Alex Schiller closed team scoring in 53rd place with a time of 16:32.5. Also for Hart, Carson Ackley was 88th (16:58.5) and Owen VanderVlucht placed 103rd (17:06.5).
The team was so deep that a few runners who didn't take the course - teams are capped at seven for a state meet - would easily have been assets to many other teams in the field. In a way, that was almost frustrating; Ackley said the team did the math and if team scores were determined by basically any number north of five, Hart would have taken the top spot.
"If it's six all the way up to 10, it's not even close, but it's all about five," Ackley said. "In general, we're pretty happy with it. We're hoping, next year to improve."
Despite the losses to graduation of Carson Ackley, VanderVlucht and Opalewski, the Pirates feel good about the chances of that going forward, as a very strong group of eighth-graders is on the way. However, for Saturday, the focus was on an outstanding 2026 campaign, and a group of athletes Ackley said made his life as a coach easy.
"Terry told me about some of the teams we had that I was a part of, but not the head coach by any means," Ackley said. "He said that great teams, you don't have to coach very much. That was these boys. I'm glad they did so well, and I think next year we'll have that again."
Shelby's Weirich runs at state
Shelby junior Parker Weirich scored his third-best time of the season at Saturday's state finals meet, finishing in 114th place overall.
Weirich scored a time of 17:15.3, his fastest time outside of the Benzie Central course this year.
