The Next One: Ruel Newberry and the Rise of Denton Guyer's Distance Star
Every generation of Texas distance running has a “next one.” That runner who shows up before anyone expects them, does things that shouldn’t be possible at their age, and forces the conversation to shift from the present to the future. For this generation, that runner is Ruel Newberry of Denton Guyer High School.
He is a sophomore. He is already one of the most talked-about distance runners in the country. And he has spent the last two years living in the shadow of Caden Leonard — a shadow that, rather than diminishing him, seems to be making him stronger.
The Summer That Started It All
The summer of 2024 was supposed to be the quiet period before Ruel Newberry’s freshman year at Guyer. Instead, it was a coming-out party that left the national running community buzzing.
In June, Newberry traveled to Franklin Field in Philadelphia for the New Balance Outdoor Nationals — the premier middle school track showcase in the country. He didn’t just compete. He dominated. On the first day, he won the middle school mile in 4:33.64, edging out the second-place finisher by less than a quarter of a second. The next morning, he came back for the two-mile and ran 9:11.70 — a new meet record, and a time that would have ranked him 29th among all Texas high school 3,200-meter runners that spring. He was finishing eighth grade.
Then came the AAU Junior Olympic Games. If New Balance Nationals raised eyebrows, what Newberry did at the AAU meet dropped jaws entirely. In the 3,000 meters, the 14-year-old from Denton ran 8:34.83 — obliterating the former national record by more than 24 seconds, and finishing 57 seconds ahead of the next competitor. The performance also set a new eighth-grade class record. He closed his final 200 meters in 32 seconds.
To put it in perspective: his AAU winning time was within 15 seconds of the age group world record.
He arrived at Denton Guyer High School that fall not as a promising freshman, but as a proven national-level talent. The buzz was already deafening.
Freshman Year: Learning the Hard Way, Winning Anyway
Texas high school cross country is different from club racing. The fields are deeper, the team dynamics more complex, and the UIL championship season compresses everything into a pressure cooker of regionals and state. For most freshmen, year one is about adjustment.
Newberry didn’t get that grace period — nor did he seem to need it.
He opened the 2024 cross country season with four races under 15 minutes, including a 14:44 that stood as one of the fastest all-time freshman performances in Texas history. He immediately established himself as a regular presence in sub-15 territory, a benchmark that separates the elite from everyone else at the high school level.
In September, he had his first major head-to-head with Caden Leonard at the Southlake Carroll Invitational. Leonard, the reigning state champion, was the older, more experienced runner. Newberry pushed him hard. As the MileSplit recap noted at the time, it was the older runner getting the win over the “shiny new toy,” with Leonard pulling away over the final half-mile — but Newberry’s 14:44 made it clear this was no ordinary freshman.
When the UIL championship season arrived, Newberry showed flashes of brilliance alongside the learning curve that comes with running at the front of major postseason fields. He finished fifth at the UIL 6A State Cross Country Championships with a time of 15:09 — a remarkable result for any freshman, let alone one stepping onto that stage for the first time. His season closed with a win at the RunningLane XC Championships, capping one of the most impressive debut cross country campaigns in Texas history.
On the track that spring, he confirmed his talent wasn’t limited to cross country. He ran elite freshman-level marks in both the 1,600 and 3,200, and qualified for the UIL 6A State Track Championships — where he finished sixth in the 3,200 with a time of 9:08.26 as a freshman. Leonard won that race; Newberry was 10 seconds back. But he was there, on the biggest stage, as a first-year high schooler, and he had made the final.
Sophomore Year: Staking His Claim
If freshman year was the introduction, sophomore year has been the statement.
Newberry opened the 2025 cross country season at the Marcus Coach T Invitational with a personal best of 14:39 — a faster season opener than even his record-breaking freshman debut. The distance running community noticed. So did his competitors.
Then came November, and the moment that cemented his status as the heir apparent to Texas 6A distance royalty. At the UIL 6A State Cross Country Championships, Newberry finished second — right behind Caden Leonard’s historic third consecutive title — with a time of 14:49. In a race where Leonard ran 14:42 to make history, Newberry’s 14:49 would have won the state title in most other years. He was seven seconds from becoming the state champion as a sophomore.
That result put the distance running world on notice. With Leonard heading to the University of North Carolina after this school year, the 6A state cross country throne is wide open. Newberry is the overwhelming favorite to sit in it — for the next two years.
What Makes Him Special
Numbers tell part of the story. The rest lives in how he runs.
Newberry is known for his even pacing and his ability to shift gears mid-race — a tactical maturity that most runners don’t develop until college. He tends to move decisively around the 1,200-meter mark in 5K races, a surge point where his competitors have consistently found they have no answer. He is not a front-runner who goes out hard and hangs on. He races with patience and precision, building pressure before releasing it.
At 6A, where fields are stacked with upperclassmen who have been competing at the state level for years, Newberry’s ability to execute tactically has been just as impressive as his raw fitness. That combination — elite aerobic capacity plus racing intelligence — is what separates the good from the generational.
His club background with the I’m Better Than That (IBTT) Track Club clearly laid a foundation that is paying dividends now. He came to high school not just fit, but experienced. He has already run at national meets under pressure, already knows what it feels like to be the hunted rather than the hunter, and already has the mental framework that most high school runners spend two or three years building.
The Leonard Parallel
It’s impossible to write about Ruel Newberry without writing about Caden Leonard — and not just because they’ve raced each other. Their careers have run in parallel in ways that feel almost scripted.
Both arrived at their respective high schools with enormous national reputations built before they ever ran a varsity race. Both made an immediate impact as freshmen. Both developed into state-level contenders in their first season and state-level threats by their second. And both have shown the kind of consistent improvement year-over-year that signals a long ceiling rather than an early peak.
The key difference, for now, is program. Leonard has run within the Carroll dynasty — seven straight team state titles, a culture of excellence, a father who doubles as his head coach. Newberry is building something different at Guyer, where coach Trenton Phelps — only a few years removed from the college coaching ranks — is developing what may become the next great North Texas distance program.
Leonard departs this spring having set the standard. Newberry’s job now is to chase it — and from what we’ve seen, he is more than capable of doing exactly that.
What Comes Next
Newberry is a sophomore in the class of 2028. He has two full years of high school cross country and track ahead of him — two more shots at a UIL state cross country title, two more spring track seasons on the Mike A. Myers Stadium oval in Austin.
The 6A state cross country field will look different next fall without Leonard in it. It will also look different with a healthy, motivated, fully developed Newberry at the front of it. His 14:49 runner-up finish this past November was run in a race where the winner was making history. Remove Leonard from that equation and Newberry would already be a state champion.
The other compelling storyline is the track. With three UIL State Track Championships still ahead of him — 2026, 2027, and 2028 — the runway is long. His 9:08.26 in the 3,200 as a freshman at state is a number that will improve significantly with each passing year. The ceiling on his track times — based on his cross country performances and his 3K club times — suggests he could challenge state record territory in both the 1,600 and 3,200 before his career is finished.
Texas distance running has had a remarkable run of elite talent at the top of 6A. Caden Leonard didn’t just raise the bar — he redefined it. Ruel Newberry is the one who has to live up to what Leonard built.
Based on everything we’ve seen so far, he’s ready for that challenge.
Ruel Newberry is a sophomore at Denton Guyer High School, class of 2028.