Preview: Northville, Trio of Reigning Individual Winners Set to Chase Championships Again
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 6, 2026
One of the most notable winning streaks in MHSAA boys cross country history will be on the line – and could become even more extraordinary – Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
Northville has won four straight Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals championships, and a fifth in a row this weekend would tie the Mustangs for the longest Finals winning streak in Lower Peninsula history. The Mustangs are attempting to catch Dexter (2002-06) and Charlevoix (1987-91) for that honor.
Three of last season’s four individual champions – Ann Arbor Pioneer’s Kamari Ronfeldt, Whitehall’s Robert Jazwinski and Charlevoix’s Hunter Eaton – also are headed back to Brooklyn seeking to repeat.
See below for several more team and individual contenders. The "season bests" list referred to frequently is a ranking of every runner's best time this season, maintained by Athletic.net. The first boys race, in Division 4, begins at 9:30 a.m.; click here for the full schedule and ticket information.
Additionally, all eight races Saturday at MIS will be streamed live and viewable with subscription on the NFHS Network: Divisions 1 & 2 | Divisions 3 & 4.
Division 1
Reigning champion: Northville
2025 runner-up: Ann Arbor Pioneer
Top-ranked: 1. Brighton, 2. Ann Arbor Skyline, 3. Traverse City West.
Northville is ranked No. 5, and Brighton will run as the favorite to break the Mustangs’ streak and is the last team not Northville to win Division 1, doing so in 2021. The Bulldogs return five of their runners from last season’s fourth-place finisher. Skyline is running for its first Finals championship and is expected to make a major jump from 16th a year ago with four runners back from that team. Traverse City West also is seeking to become a first-time champion and brings back four runners from last year’s 11th-place performance. Titans senior Liam Wierzba has the fastest time this season from those three teams, a 15:04.5 to rank 13th on the Division 1 top times list, just ahead of Northville senior – and last season’s individual runner-up – Brandon Cloud (15:06) at 14th, Skyline junior Roman Stilwell (15:20.6) ranking 18th and Brighton sophomore Grant Kulesza (15:25.2) listed 23rd.
Individuals: Three juniors were the first three to cross the finish last season, and four juniors total placed among the top six – and all four will run again this weekend. Ann Arbor Pioneer senior Kamari Ronfeldt is the reigning champion and has the second-fastest top time in Division 1 this season at 14:44.3, just behind the 14:43 of Grandville senior Caden Livermore – last year’s third-place finisher. Northville’s Cloud placed second in 2025 and is noted above, and Howell senior Jack MacGregor placed sixth last fall for the second-straight season and has the sixth-fastest top time this year at 14:58.3. Macomb L’Anse Creuse North junior Xavier Solgot was 11th last season and ranks fifth (14:55) on this year’s top times list, with Grand Haven senior Luka Hammond third this season (14:50.1) and sophomore teammate Archer VerHage fourth (14:51.8). Hammond was 14th at MIS last year and fifth as a sophomore. Fenton junior Gavin Katic finished fourth in Division 2 last season and enters the Division 1 race tied for the ninth-fastest top time in this field.
Division 2
Reigning champion: Flint Powers Catholic
2025 runner-up: East Grand Rapids
Top-ranked: 1. Holland Christian, 2. Pinckney, 3. East Grand Rapids
As in Division 1, the reigning champion enters ranked No. 5 this time and certainly still in the mix. Holland Christian is looking to make a jump from sixth last year to win its first championship and returns four runners from a year ago with sophomore Grant Lampen (16th) and freshman Drew Franken (20th) on the Division 2 top-times list. Pinckney has two among the top 18 – seniors Cole McCraw (fourth, 15:22.2) and Lincoln Reed (18th) – as it looks to jump from 10th last season while returning five runners. East Grand Rapids returns only three runners after finishing second last season, eight points off the lead, but among them are junior Micah Becker – who placed seventh individually. He ranks ninth on the top times list (15:32.7), and senior teammate Thomas Fisher ranks 21st.
Individuals: Whitehall senior Robert Jazwinski won last season’s championship by five seconds and will attempt to repeat with the top time in the state this season in any division by 20 seconds at 14:23 – which is also nearly 44 seconds faster than anyone else in the Division 2 field this fall. Flint Powers junior Lennox Naswell is the next-highest returning placer after coming in fifth a year ago, and he has the second-fastest top time in Division 2 at 15:06.6. Alma senior Ezekiel Baltierra (sixth), Becker (seventh) and Grand Rapids Catholic Central senior Mitchell Dunlap (eighth) also are back from the 2025 top 10, Baltierra ranking third on the top times list (15:08.6) and Dunlap seventh (15:29.2).
Division 3
Reigning champion: Charlevoix
2025 runner-up: Lansing Catholic
Top-ranked: 1. Hart, 2. Hanover-Horton, 3. Charlevoix.
Charlevoix’s first championship last season since 1991 was among the stories of the day at MIS, and the Rayders will turn to five returning runners led by reigning individual champion Hunter Eaton, now a senior, and 10th-place finisher Ryder Hopkins, also a senior. Hart was 10th last season but without a senior, and five of those runners are back as well. Hanover-Horton has two runners among the top 19 on the Division 3 top times list, seniors Cooper Flick (sixth) and Chad Tyson (19th) and six runners back total from last year’s 13th-place finisher. Hart last won Division 3 in 2022, and Hanover-Horton most recently claimed the title in 2019.
Individuals: Only four seniors finished among the top 17 last season, and Eaton leads a large group of returning runners after claiming last year’s title by three seconds. He ranks eighth on the fastest times list this fall at 15:30.9, with Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest junior Nole Lorenzen setting the pace at 15:10.3 after finishing fifth at last year’s Final. Hillsdale senior Logan Youngman finished fourth a year ago and is second on the top times list at 15:18.3, and Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central junior Christian Craanen placed third last year and has the third-fastest top time this fall at 15:21.3. Caro senior Luke Herron (sixth), Holland Black River senior Jonas Ballard (seventh), Bath junior Owen Poppema (eighth), Saugatuck senior Marcus Silva (ninth) and Hopkins also are back from the top 10, and Jonesville senior Caleb Blonde also could be in the mix ranking fourth on the top times list (15:27.1) coming off a 17th-place finish a year ago.
Division 4
Reigning champion: Holland Calvary Christian
2025 runner-up: Maple City Glen Lake
Top-ranked: 1. Holland Calvary Christian, 2. Breckenridge, 3. Hillsdale Academy.
Calvary returns its top five runners and six total from last year’s program-first championship team, with seniors Noah Schipper (15:39) and Christian Getz (15:39.6) ranking third and fourth, respectively, on the Division 4 top times list and six runners total among the top 23. Getz was eighth and Schipper 18th at last year’s Final. Breckenridge last won in 2019 and placed eighth last season with four freshmen and three juniors; the Huskies return their top five with senior Anthony Rowe 14th individually last season and entering this weekend with the top time in Division 4 this fall at 15:33.2. Hillsdale Academy is seeking to move back into the top spot after finishing third last season but winning Division 4 three times over the last six seasons. Three runners are back from the 2025 lineup, and sophomore Stephen Holm ranks 14th on the top times list.
Individuals: Getz was one of only two non-seniors to finish among the top 10 last fall, and he’s the only one back this weekend. Wyoming Tri-unity Christian junior Lincoln Laansma placed 20th last season and ranks second on the top times list this year at 15:35.8, and Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart senior Brady Edwards ranks fifth (15:41.7) after placing 11th last season. Mesick senior Kyle Redman finished 13th as a sophomore and 12th last fall, and could make a move as well entering 10th on the top times list.
PHOTOS (Top) Charlevoix’s Hunter Eaton pulls away from the field during his team’s Division 3 Regional championship run last week at Mancelona. (Middle) Several runners including those from East Grand Rapids break from the starting line during the Oct. 21 Ottawa-Kent Conference White championship race. (Top photo by kishba media. Middle photo by Michigan Sports Media.)
Performance: Brimley's Austin Plotkin
October 25, 2019
Austin Plotkin
Brimley senior – Cross Country
Plotkin finished an accomplishment Saturday that has been achieved in Michigan high school boys cross country only once before. By winning the Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final championship for the fourth time, Plotkin joined Central Lake legend Ryan Shay as the only other four-time boys champion (LP Class D 1993-96), earning the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.”
Plotkin’s time of 17:20.7 was nearly 11 seconds ahead of the field at Gentz’s Golf Course in Marquette and capped an undefeated season that included for the first time a championship as well at the Mackinaw City Invitational on Sept. 26. Plotkin entered this fall with a personal record (PR) of 16:50 and lowered it to 16:32. This season’s Finals winning time actually was just the third-fastest of his four, further backing up Brimley athletic director Hugh Clarke, who called Plotkin arguably the school’s most dominant athlete over the course of a four-year high school career. Plotkin also owns an Upper Peninsula Division 3 Finals track championship in the 3,200 from 2017 and will run that race plus the 800 and 1,600 in the spring. He holds all of his school’s cross country records and is part of two record-holding track relays. Plotkin also plans to play basketball this winter for the first time since freshman year.
Also worth applauding: After an admittedly disappointing freshman year academically, Plotkin has raised his grade-point average a full point over the last two years and is considering a number of options athletically and academically at the college level. He’s planning to study business administration and finance.
Coach Wilson Hester said: “When I first saw him as an eighth grader, I could tell right away he had ability, but he didn’t know pacing or how to run. He would just go out and run fast or slow with not a lot of pacing involved. Once we got him doing proper training and technique work, and he was learning how to pace, he flourished. … He’s brought lots of recognition to the school. He’s been leading the track and cross country teams for the past four years, and everybody in the region and Upper Peninsula knows who he is. … He’s just scratching the surface of what he can do. He has some tremendous potential. I think at the next level, with more mileage, more of a training season – our seasons are so short up here, it’s difficult to get them to where their absolute potential can be – I have no doubt (he’ll continue to improve).”
Performance Point: “In the last probably quarter mile of the race, I definitely thought back to what everyone had said to me when I won freshman year,” Plotkin recalled of Saturday. “They said, 'Oh my goodness, you have so much potential. You could probably do this four years.' And I remember I was scoffing, thinking no, there will be another up-and-comer, somebody who can beat me. And looking back I remember Mr. Clarke told me if I win four years in a row, as soon as possible I'll be in the Brimley Hall of Fame. And just one of the things that came to me in that quarter mile, I was just thinking, one, how wrong I was – I thought that I couldn't do it, and here I was doing it. And plus, also, I was just super-excited to have done it, because it was such a feat – only one other person has done it.”
No shot at putting: “Eighth grade track was my first time running. I actually wanted to do shot put because my summer job the summer before was moving split wood for my grandpa. And then my coach Justin Carrick asked me, he said ‘Hey, we've got nobody doing (the 3,200). You're scrawny. You can do it. We just need someone to run the 2-mile. I don't care what you get – you've just got to run it.’ In middle school it's the first event, and I won it. I ran like an 11:20 that day, which is really bad for eighth grade. He took me out of shot put and put me in the mile and 800, and I went undefeated all the way until the last two meets, which coincidentally were the only two meets we got medals for and Jimmy Storey from Pickford beat me in the 800 both of those meets. So I lost two races and by the end of the season I was down to 10:55 for my 2-mile time. … I fell in love with winning. Once I had a little bit of something to do it for really; now that I had a shoebox of medals, I was like yeah, I can do this. And then I got a text from my friend over the (eighth-grade summer) that was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you come do cross country? It’s like track in the woods.’”
Just getting started: “Coming into it as a freshman, I didn't know that I would have the potential to win. My coach told me first race, do top 20. And I won. From that point, there weren't too many races that I lost. And the ones I did, basically the meet that I lost consistently every year was the Mack(inaw) City Invitational where we ran against Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Gaylord St. Mary. And even at those meets I got second or third. And this year was my first year that I won it. … It came to me naturally as a freshman, and as the years went on I realized I had to do a lot more offseason work and I had to do a lot more in-season work not only to keep my speed, but to go faster. This was my first summer that I actually ran consistently all summer, so this season I came out and broke my PR first meet and then consistently stayed within the mid 16:30s.”
Bays on a run: “When I came in as a freshman, our cross country program was a club. Cross country was out of the picture for a lot of students, and a lot of people didn't want to participate. And track, the year that I was in eighth grade, high school track I think had 11 participants. So it's amazing to see not only how I, but how the entire cross country team has progressed. This season we had about 15 consistent runners for cross country, and last track season … I think by the end we had 25 participants, which is pretty impressive considering we had just 11 four years ago.”
Numbers games: “I think I want to run a business, or, I really like numbers; I’m in accounting right now, and I love balancing journals. So one thing I could do is be a financial officer at a bank, which is a pretty cool deal. … I definitely love in physics, when we have equations, just trying to figure out the mystery behind it and when you can’t make something add up.”
– Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Past honorees
Oct. 17: Jack Spamer, Brighton cross country - Report
Oct. 10: Kaylee Maat, Hudsonville volleyball - Report
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Brimley's Austin Plotkin pushes toward the finish at Saturday's Upper Peninsula Division 3 Final. (Middle) Plotkin runs with a pack earlier in the race. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)