Hart came out on the short end of a tough defeat Friday against Orchard View, dropping a back-and-forth fight to the Cardinals 35-30.
OV scored the winning touchdown late in the third quarter on a 77-yard scoring toss from star quarterback Peyton Babbitt to his top target, Ca'mari Reese. Hart got inside the Cardinals' 30-yard line twice after that, but was unable to turn those drives into points.
The Pirates (3-4) opened the scoring with an impressive touchdown drive on their first possession. Spearheaded by a 33-yard Kyle Greiner run on third down, Hart got in the end zone on a 16-yard carry by Greiner. The senior was the focal point of the Pirates' second drive, too, ripping off a 55-yard carry before scoring a touchdown later in the possession to give his team a 16-7 lead.
Orchard View's potent offense kept coming back, though, and the Cardinals grabbed a 21-16 lead with a pair of touchdown drives in the second quarter.
Greiner, though, wasn't done yet. On a night where he ran for a whopping 264 yards and averaged 11 yards per attempt, Greiner scored again on a 16-yard run on fourth down early in the third quarter, putting the Pirates ahead 24-21. When the Cardinals responded, Hart came back with an impressive 13-play drive to the end zone, on which Greiner again had the biggest play, a 22-yard run. Kolton Rockwell bulled in for the score from two yards out. A missed two-point conversion left the Pirates' lead at 30-28.
Babbitt, a Saginaw Valley State University commit, then hit Reese on OV's next play from scrimmage for what turned out to be the winning score. Hart was stopped on downs at the Cardinals' 27-yard line on its next possession, and its final chance ended with the Cardinals picking off a pass on third down at its own 25.
Halen Boos led the Pirate defensive charge with 10 tackles on the night, and Keaghan Monroe had six. Logan Jorissen recorded a pair of pass breakups.
