Down the backstretch, North Adams’ Beau Hesler leaves the competition behind on his way to winning the Division III state championship in the Boys 800 M Run. (Photo by Danielle Jodrey)
North Adams’ Hesler is Division III state champion in 800M Run
The leader board says it all as the winning time for Beau Hesler in the 800M sets a new personal and school record. (Photo by Danielle Jodrey)
# 1 in the state! North Adams junior Beau Hesler commands the coveted top spot on the podium after winning the Division III state championship ion the 800M Run. (Photo by Danielle Jodrey)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
June 9, 1973. Belmont Stakes. In a field of five horses, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown in runaway fashion, pulling away on the backstretch on the way to a dominating 31-length victory.
June 7, 2025. Ohio High School Athletic Association Division III State Track Meet. In a field of 18 runners, North Adams junior Beau Hesler, competing in the Boys 800M run, pulls away on the backstretch and races to a dominant victory, leaving his opponents far behind and capturing the first-ever state championship in the history of the school and only the second in Adams County history, joining Peebles’ Jenny Seas who won the Girls 3200M at the state meet in 2018.
Leave no doubt. That is exactly what Secretariat did in 1973 and what Beau Hesler did last Saturday morning at Jesse Owens Stadium in the 800M run on the state’s biggest stage, the OHSAA State Track Meet. Running in a personal record and school record time of 1:51.78, Hesler won the race by nearly three seconds, which in the track world is very comparable to Secretariat’s 31 lengths, pumping his fist as he crossed the finish line as the culmination of years of hard work came to fruition.
“For the most part it has all sunk in, but I’m still processing it a little bit,” said the victorious Hesler in a Sunday afternoon interview with The Defender. “My family kind of blew it up on Facebook and that helped me process what had really happened.It makes me proud to be a Green Devil. We have the best sports programs in the county and I like making them proud.”
“I’ve been running since about second or third grade,” explained Hesler. “I started out running cross-country with Coach Kelly Boerger and I did pretty well in that and in junior high I started track and I really liked it and then liked it even more when I got to high school. I started out running longer distances but I tapered that down to doing some sprints and found I was really good at the 800. I made it to state last year and got third and now this year I’m a state champion.”
Though he is a state champion in the 800 M, Hesler can also excel in other events as he showed in the recent Southern Hills Athletic Conference Meet. Instead of running in the 800, he chose to run in the 100M, 200M and 400M in an effort to earn his team more total points. The strategy worked perfectly as he swept those events and the Green Devils won the SHAC team title. Another goal for the season was to hit 1:52 in the 800 and he picked the perfect time to do it. As it turned out, Hesler’s winning time was second in the state over all the various divisions, topped only by a runner in Division I.
Hesler was also a member of the North Adams boys 4 x 400 relay team that also competed in state but did not qualify for the finals, giving him ample time to focus in on the 800M race.
“I had been studying all the rankings of 800M runners in the state and all the seed times,” said Hesler. “I knew what everyone was running and I was the #1 seed but there were some other guys close who I knew would push me. To start the race it seemed like a long hold but the beep finally went off and I didn’t take off too hard and I wasn’t in first place after the first lap. I saved my energy for a big kick on the second lap and brought it home. As I pulled away I was thinking in my head, ‘Oh my gosh this could actually be happening, I could be a state champion.’ When I crossed the finish line and gave the fist pump, my emotions were pretty high and I was just totally happy with winning.”
“I was still just taking it all in when I got up to the podium. The adrenaline was still way up and I don’t think the exhaustion hit me until about 20 minutes later.”
“It’s pretty special to coach a state champion,” said North Adams boys track coach Jeff Raines. “It’s really hard to describe the feeling that I had seeing Beau pass me at about the 100M mark and when I saw him start to pull away, I’m not going to lie, there may have been a tear or two shed. When I found him after the race, there were no words, it was just a big congratulations hug. To see one of my ‘kids’ win a state championship, it was just overwhelming. I’ve got Beau for another year and the 4 x 400 team will all be back so we’ve got a great core so I anticipate more great things to come.”
Beau had another bit of inspiration on his path to a state title, his brother Cody, who was quite the athlete at North Adams and is now a member of the Shawnee State track program. Cody qualified for last year’s state meet and finished second in the state in the Boys 400M Dash. “I really wanted to top him, I’ve been his training buddy and we’ve always pushed each other and this year I took a jump really close to his times and since he finished second last year, I really wanted to beat that.”
“Coach Raines put a lot of time into planning our training and he had us a plan and structured it well. Between regionals and state, he tapered things back some to keep us fresh for the big races and it worked to perfection for me.”
“Beau told me after the regional race, he said ‘I got more’,” said Coach Raines. “He told me he knew that he had more left on the backstretch and he did exactly what he said he was going to do. In the world of track, winning by three second is a huge deal.”
Looking to the future, Hesler already has his sights set on what he hopes to accomplish in the 2025-26 school year.
“I’d like to help get our relay team to the state finals and hopefully get a state championship there and obviously I want to repeat as the state champion in the 800.” Beyond that, Beau would consider joining his brother at Shawnee and running together.
“That would be awesome, but I’ll have to see what other opportunities present themselves,” Hesler commented.
One thing that likely every fan in attendance at Saturday’s state meet noticed was the large crowd of family, friends and community m,embers who showed up to support Beau in his championship quest, undoubtedly the largest and loudest contingent of fans for any athlete or school there.
“The North Adams community is awesome,” said Hesler. “The people here, as soon as I won, there was already talk about a parade and we had a big party afterwards, All my coaches have supported me the whole way and I had a bunch of friends show up plus my family and I’m sure it was the largest cheering section around.”
