High school boys cross country: South’s Julian 3-peats as individual champ

Published 12:00 am Sunday, October 15, 2023

By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — The Rowan County Championships will be the biggest event of the season for most of the county’s runners, but for South senior Eli Julian this was just another day at the office.

While Carson interrupted South’s string of five straight team championships on Thursday at Dan Nicholas Park, Julian won this third title. He’s only the third male to win three times in an event with history that goes back to 1985.

David Bost won a trio of county titles for Salisbury (1998-2000). Eli’s brother, Noah, won three straight from 2018-20. Combined, the Julians, who were teammates for one season, took six in a row.

“I planned to win the meet, but I was treating the county basically as a workout day,” Eli said. “I ran 16:10, and that’s exactly what I run in a workout. It almost never works out the way you plan for it to work out, but this time it did. I did what I wanted to do. A perfect day. I wasn’t going for records. I wasn’t going to run full out and go as hard as I could go. I’m still trying to save my legs for the meets to come.”

Julian is good enough that, for him, there will be meets even beyond the state meet. He’s got his sights set on elite regional events in November that will be sponsored by Footlocker and Nike. Those events will have fast fields and will be held on swift courses will have an impact on recruiting and where he winds up running in college.

“I’m going to be running against top guys from Texas, from Georgia, from Florida and Virginia,” Julian said. “Those are going to be important meets for me.”

Julian has started making college visits, two so far, but there won’t be a decision for a while.

“It’s going to be interesting to see where he lands and what his future holds,” South coach Tyler Downs said.

Thursday’s meet began in unusual fashion. Julian didn’t have his trademark headband, but there was no panic.

“No big deal,” he said. “I just didn’t bring it to the race. I’m not that superstitious that I was going to worry about it.”

Downs said the Cougars, who have multiple strong runners, tried to box Julian in early.

“Eli has too much big race experience for that,” Downs said. “He is extremely intelligent on race strategy and putting himself in the right spot. He got boxed in at states in the 1600 his sophomore year, and he learned from it. He knows he can’t let it happen.”

After the first mile, Carson’s Bricen Burleson, the former Raider, was still running with Julian, but then Julian achieved some separation.

“I picked it up some, was able to open up some distance and was able to take it from there,” Julian said. “Those last two miles, it was a solo effort.”

Just another workout day.

Carson’s Jorge Clemente (16:23) and Burleson (16:43) ran strong times and followed Julian to the finish line.

Julian put his name in the history books. as one of the nine runners to successfully defend their title in the event.

One of those two-time winners was East Rowan’s Benjamin Frick, Julian’s uncle.

“It’s nice when you’ve got a kid who knows he’s going to win the race before the race,” Downs said. “But Eli goes way above and beyond just winning races with his dedication to his teammates and to his sport. His leadership is phenomenal, and I’m just absolutely proud of him for the young man that he is.”