OBETZ, Ohio — Napoleon junior Gwen Huddle is a state champion. Huddle won the Division III girls race at the OHSAA State Cross Country Championships on Saturday, November 7, at Fortress Obetz and Memorial Park, finishing in 17:35.7, according to The Repository’s live state-meet results. The win gave Henry County and Northwest Ohio an individual state title in a race that started at 1:40 p.m., the sixth of eight championship races on the day.
Huddle’s closest challenger was the defending champion. Marlington senior Irelyn Johnson, who won her first state title in 2025, closed out her cross country career as the state runner-up in 17:53.5, according to The Repository. That left a gap of 17.8 seconds at the finish — a clear margin in a 5,000-meter championship race, and a changing of the guard in Division III.
The Akron Beacon Journal, reporting from Fortress Obetz, described temperatures in the mid-40s, overcast skies and a northwest wind of about 10 mph — workable conditions for distance runners, but not the kind of warm, still afternoon that produces easy fast times.
Huddle arrived as the runner to beat, and the form held. The Repository’s state-meet preview reported that she owned the state’s top Division III girls time, a personal-best 17:05.5 at the Owens Community College district, and won the Tiffin regional in 17:23.0. Podium Watch put it in sharper relief: her regional time was 32.9 seconds faster than any other Division III girl ran on October 31, and her season best was more than 43 seconds faster than anyone else in the field.
She also did it without a team around her. Podium Watch reported that Napoleon finished two places outside the team qualifying cut at the regional, so Huddle advanced as an individual qualifier — racing for the same medal, but without teammates to share the early pace or lift her late in the race. Her title was, from qualifying onward, a solo project in Napoleon’s colors.
Her postseason timeline shows a steady peak: the 17:05.5 personal best at the Owens district, reported by The Repository; the Tiffin regional win on October 31 in 17:23.0, by 1:17.6 over the runner-up, according to Podium Watch; then the state title at Obetz in 17:35.7. Three championship races, three wins — a favorite’s form confirmed at every step.
Johnson’s second place underlined the quality of the win. The Repository’s preview reported that Johnson had won eight of her nine meets, broke 18 minutes for the second time this year in winning the Boardman regional, and carried a season best of 17:48.7 into Obetz. Huddle did not win a weakened field — she beat a defending champion in winning form, by nearly 18 seconds.
The race behind the top two showed the depth of the Division III field. The Beacon Journal reported that Crestwood finished fourth in the team race with 198 points and Woodridge finished fifth with 215 points, led by Lola Mullen’s All-Ohio 22nd-place finish in 19:03.6. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Madeira junior Lucy Folger reached the podium in 19th place in 18:57.1 and helped Madeira to seventh in the team standings. Those team battles went on around Huddle, but the individual gold was settled at the front.
For Napoleon, the title caps a story building for years. An Ohio House resolution honored Huddle for securing the 2023 National Lutheran Cross Country Championship as an eighth-grader at St. Paul Lutheran School in Napoleon. She is now a first-team Northern Lakes League runner — the league’s 2026 Cardinal Division all-league team listed the junior on its first team — and she owns the honor that matters most in Ohio school running: an OHSAA state championship.
Saturday at Obetz crowned champions across all four divisions. Earlier in the day, the Division I girls race produced its own first-time team champion, covered by NewsForce247 in Milford’s first-ever state cross country championship at Obetz. Huddle’s win was the meet’s other breakthrough — by a single runner from Henry County who had been the fastest Division III girl in Ohio all postseason.
What happens next starts with the rest of her junior year. Ohio’s distance runners move to the track in the spring, where Huddle’s strength will be tested over 1,600 and 3,200 meters. Next fall she returns for a senior season carrying a new target: defending an OHSAA state title, back through the Tiffin regional and, if the form holds, back at Fortress Obetz in November 2027.
For now, the result is complete and it is hers. On a cold, gray afternoon in Obetz, against a defending champion in form, Gwen Huddle ran 17:35.7, won by 17.8 seconds, and brought a Division III state championship home to Napoleon — the kind of win a community remembers, and a junior champion gets a full year to try to repeat.
Photo: Jonathan Schilling, CC BY