COLUMBUS — You couldn’t script a better ending to a high school career even though, technically, Julia Wheeler still has a couple of races to go.
Long one of Portage County’s top distance runners, the Southeast senior finished her final 3,200-meter race atop the podium as the Division IV state champion at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Wheeler said. “I run to honor God. It just is amazing to see all my hard work pay off, and to know I had something in me like that, and just going out senior year state champion feels really good.”
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You couldn’t script a better state championship race.
After two crowded laps with little separation, Huron’s Rylie Towns and Wheeler ended up taking a long run together. For the bulk of their state championship race, Wheeler was in front and Towns a step or two behind.
Towns never let Wheeler go. Indeed, on numerous occasions, Towns threatened to surge ahead. Wheeler, a Youngstown State commit, wouldn’t let her.
And Wheeler found a championship surge coming out of the final curve, prevailing by roughly two seconds with a time of 10:46.87 to Towns’ 10:48.85.
“That last lap, it just was pure guts,” Wheeler said. “[I was] taking it almost 100 meter by 100 meter and just really everything I had that last 100.”
Julia Wheeler’s path to a state championship
Wheeler had never qualified for the state track and field meet before her junior season.
That 2024-2025 school year was Wheeler’s breakout season. She made a huge jump at the state cross country meet, rising 20 places from the previous year, and then qualified for state track for the first time. In her Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium debut, she impressed mightily, finishing fifth.
If Wheeler’s junior year set the stage, her senior season has been one heck of a final performance. A year ago, she qualified for state in one event, the 3,200. This season, she qualified in all four distance races — the 800, 1,600 and 3,200, as well as the 3,200 relay.
That relay was special, as Wheeler had the chance to bring teammates with her to Columbus. Making it even more special, she brought her younger sister, Grace. But the older Wheeler didn’t compete in the 3,200 relay at state. Her coaches knew she needed all the energy she could muster for the individual 3,200 that came barely two hours later.
“It actually really made me happy to know that I was able to give that opportunity to one of the younger girls and see them out there and run,” Wheeler said. “I was a lot happier with that outcome than if I were to run it myself.”
In that 3,200, Wheeler hung back early. So did Towns.
Towns and Wheeler were sixth and seventh, respectively, after the first lap. By the race’s quarter point, two laps in, Wheeler and Towns were one and two. Port Clinton’s Morgan Wiechman was right there with them for the first half of the race. Toward the race’s latter half, though, it was just Wheeler and Towns. Remarkably so.
Just look at their times at the end of each lap:
It doesn’t take an advanced degree in mathematics to see how close the championship race was. Wheeler led by a quarter of a second to a half of a second at every checkpoint. It was that close. When the time came, Wheeler was ready with one last burst to secure the title.
“Just pure adrenaline, really,” Wheeler said. “I wasn’t really thinking anything other than that I know how I race and I know that I have that kick at the end that I can keep for a while, and just knowing it’s my last two-mile race and I didn’t have anything to conserve for today.
“So I kind of started before that [last] 100 meter [stretch] knowing if I just get a little headstart on it now, I knew I could gut it out that last 100.”
The Pirates’ last state title came in 2015, courtesy of Jenna Fesemyer, one of the greatest seated athletes Ohio has ever seen. Eleven years later, Wheeler cemented her own legacy as one of Ohio’s best distance runners.
Contact Jonah L. Rosenblum at jrosenblum@recordpub.com and follow him on Twitter at @JLRSports.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Southeast’s Julia Wheeler wins 3,200 title at OHSAA state track meet
Reporting by Jonah Rosenblum, Ravenna Record-Courier / Record-Courier
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By Jonah Rosenblum, Ravenna Record-Courier | USA TODAY Network
