BROOKLYN – Charlevoix wasn’t given much of a chance to repeat as champion at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Boys Cross Country Final.

One pre-race projection, in fact, said the Rayders had almost no shot at all based on the season-best times of the teams involved.

But none of the previous races mattered Saturday, as Charlevoix ran to an 18-point victory and second-straight team title at Michigan International Speedway.

“I can’t believe how great I feel for these guys,” Charlevoix coach Doug Drenth said. “We always believed. They gave us about a 2-percent chance of winning. One thing we don’t do is we don’t chase fast courses. There’s a lot of schools that want to go race fast, and there’s some benefit to that, but we knew how good we were the whole year, and we felt like once we get everyone together and once we perform like we can, we knew we could do this. They just believed, and that’s who has to believe.”

Charlevoix finished with 123 points, edging ahead of top-ranked Hart at 141. 

The difference came at the top, as Charlevoix’s top two runners, Hunter Eaton and Ryder Hopkins, both finished ahead of the top runner for Hart.

“Those low sticks – we talked about Hunter getting the low stick and Ryder being in there, too and doing that for us, that’s a huge advantage,” Drenth said. “We kind of have been carried by Hunter for a long time. We’re grateful to have that talent with that guy. But I’ll tell you what, Auri (Selph) and Jacob (Muladore) and Maxwell (Drenth) did a great job today. You have to have all five score, and for them to do that is phenomenal.”

Eaton, who was the 2025 Final individual champion, finished fifth overall this time and third in the team scoring with a time of 15 minutes, 35.1 seconds, while Hopkins was also all-state, coming in 22^nd (17^th for the team) at 16:08.1.

Selph was 39^th (26) at 16:25.3, Muladore was 49^th (32) at 16:30.2 and Drenth was 63^rd (45) at 16:40.3.

Nole Lorenzen of Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest took home the individual title, running 15:20.1, five seconds ahead of Logan Youngman of Hillsdale who was second at 15:25.8.

Lorenzen, a junior, was in second after the first mile, but took control of the race from there.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “It’s just been the goal. I knew that I was fully capable of getting it, so that’s just what I envisioned the whole time. I knew my best race would come from staying calm through the first mile, mile and a half. My strength is grinding out the gap in the middle of the race, so I knew I had to be with them there and out-grind them.”

Lorenzen earned his third straight all-state finish, as he was fifth as a sophomore and 21^st as a freshman.

“This has been the goal since the first few races in the season,” Lorenzen said. “It’s just really come to fruition with the last few races, I’ve had some big wins in some big meets, and that’s just brought me closer to thinking that I could have a shot at this.”

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PHOTOS (Top) Charlevoix’s Ryder Hopkins races through the closing stretch of Saturday’s Division 3 Boys Finals. (Middle) Lutheran Northwest’s Nole Lorenzen covers the final paces of his championship run. (Click for more from Dave McCauley/RunMichigan.com.)