The Manhattan Indians girls golf team earned their place on the mountaintop for the second-straight season, bringing the 6A State Trophy back home, after their first place finish at Hesston Golf Course on Oct. 21.

“It means everything,” senior Wrenn Burton said. “Getting to do it with my best friends means the absolute most, and let alone it being back-to-back is pretty incredible too.”

The Indians with a team score of 617, topped second-place Shawnee Mission East (629) by 12 strokes to take the title after having trailed 317-311 at the end of the first of two days in the tournament.

“These girls, they’re just so competitive,” head coach Paige McCarthy said. “And I just thought we would do well as the chasers.”

Senior Kat Ball attributed the comeback to the Indians experience competing in the State Tournament in past years.

“It definitely was able to settle the nerves,” Ball said. “I think even going into day two, after we were down, we were still able to collect our thoughts and regroup and still come out day two and firing and guns-a-blazing.”

Senior Lily Bahr had a clear favorite State title experience. 

“Definitely this one,” Bahr said. “Just because day [two], we were going into it six strokes down, so it was really cool to come back and win [the second round] by 18 strokes.”

The Indians top four finishers were all on last year’s title team. Maddie Myers’ score of 149 strokes made her the State runner-up individually. Out of the six on Varsity, Myers, a junior, is the only not-senior golfer. But for Ball who took the bronze individually, finishing one stroke behind Myers, winning State was the perfect ending to a successful high school career.

“It was awesome to do it with my fellow seniors, because we all knew this was our last ride, so we wanted to go out with a bang, and we all really came together,” Ball said. 

Bahr snatched ninth individually with a score of 156 and Burton grabbed 16th scoring a 165. Out of all six MHS golfers, Burton had the biggest improvement in her second round score compared to her first, with 90 strokes in the first round and just 70 strokes in the second, contributing to the MHS comeback.

“The first day, I struggled quite a bit with putting. I’m not really sure what was happening. I had like, 42 putts the first day, and that is definitely not what you want to do,” Burton said. “The second day, I just really worked on my putting, warming up, and I was able to cut my putts down to 25.”

Senior Jessica Kim (168) was not far behind, as she took 21st and fellow arsity-newcomer this season Alyse Yoxall, senior, landed 40th with a score of 184.

Indians golfers were not allowed to know the results until all golfers finished their final holes.

“We didn’t want them to let up, and we didn’t want them to know how they were doing,” McCarthy said.

After things wrapped up, coaches told the girls about their results, making the news of the victory exciting and even surprising.

“[I was] a little bit [suprised], just because I had no clue how everyone else was playing all day,” Myers said.

Gusty winds throughout the tournament had an effect, especially during day one, but the Indians persevered, using it as a point of separation between them and other teams.

“The wind definitely made it a lot more difficult for us,” Bahr said. “But I think one of the great qualities about our team is we can come out in those adverse conditions and score well. And I feel like some other teams maybe don’t adapt as well.”

This season, MHS owned stand-alone top spots in every tournament, except for the Firebird Invitational on Sept. 22, in which the Indians tied for first with Shawnee Mission East. SME was consistently the Indian’s biggest competition throughout the whole season.

“There’s definitely been a rivalry,” Ball said. “We definitely had a lot of fire to go out and win.”

The connections between the girls have made this season not only a massive success, but also a powerful journey of friendship, no matter where the team is, on the golf course or during van rides  coming home from tournaments.

“We were singing the entire way home,” Burton said. “I’m a little hoarse right now from that van ride. It was really cool. It’s just, we’re all so comfortable around each other, and there’s no one better that we would have rather celebrated with.”