Manhattan enjoyed a beautiful day Monday, with near-perfect conditions for golf at Stagg Hill Golf Course. The Manhattan High girls\u2019 golf team took advantage of it, winning the Centennial League championship with a team score of 346.<\/p>\n
Led by senior Maddie Myers, who completed her own four-peat of individual league titles with a 3-under-par 69, the Indians claimed their fourth straight team championship and first under new head coach Brock Leroux.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncredibly proud,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cWe have a lot of new faces, and I\u2019m sure there\u2019s pressure that they probably feel to continue the success we\u2019ve had, in a really tough spot where a lot of them hadn\u2019t played a ton of varsity golf before. I\u2019m sure to some degree they take it for granted, but that\u2019s a really big deal to just come in, perform at a level that can win a league title and keep this train rolling. That\u2019s what special groups do, and I\u2019m really, really proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Myers continued her dominant run through the Centennial League, finishing 12 strokes ahead of Washburn Rural\u2019s next-best finisher, Kailyn Petersen, to claim another individual championship. The senior has now won four straight league individual titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, her golf game is incredible. It doesn\u2019t just happen. The amount of time and work and effort and thought that she puts in,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cShe\u2019s a great student, but you can just tell how smart and intelligent she is when she\u2019s talking about golf, knowing what needs to happen and when talking about the team and her teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leroux said Myers\u2019 impact has gone beyond her performance on the course, helping establish the team culture he wants to build in his first season.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe genuinely cares and thinks about her teammates,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cThe best compliment that I can give her and this team, we have a couple of tournaments that we go to in Kansas City. They\u2019re two-hour drives and they do not stop talking the whole time. It is two and a half hours of jokes and games and chatting and music, and that\u2019s the stuff you remember as a player.<\/p>\n
\u201cWins are nice and stuff, but knowing if there are people that care about you and you can have a good time with while still competing and going after a goal, she\u2019s really helped cultivate that of, \u2018Hey, this is a family,\u2019 not just a group of girls that golf together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Myers wasn\u2019t the only Indian to turn in a strong performance.<\/p>\n
Lilly Nelson shot a 91 to finish sixth, while Gabby Fehr and Addy Crouch each shot 93 to tie for seventh. Emily Hartung finished 12th with a 97, and Brooke Jones rounded out the Manhattan lineup in 13th with a 99.<\/p>\n
The four top-seven finishes helped the Indians pull away from the rest of the league. Washburn Rural finished second at 362, followed by Hayden at 387, Emporia at 418 and Junction City at 458.<\/p>\n
Leroux was particularly pleased with the performances from Nelson and Hartung, two freshmen who have taken on larger roles as the season has progressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had our two freshmen step up today, which I was really proud of,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cLilly Nelson shot a 91. She\u2019s a kid that loves golf, and she\u2019s one of those team players you just want on your team in any sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hartung joined the varsity lineup after the Indians\u2019 first couple of tournaments and has provided a steady presence since.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been a really great addition to our team,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cShe has just been even-keeled, steady and consistent. All of the girls are very excited for her when she does well, and I\u2019m really excited to see where both of them go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crouch also continued to provide leadership alongside Myers, something Leroux said has stood out during the Indians\u2019 transition to a new coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have really great leadership on this team,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cObviously, Maddie does a great job, and then Addy Crouch, she played well, and her leadership continues to impress me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur group, they\u2019re all great teammates, and I think that\u2019s really important for the growth of a program,\u201d Leroux continued. \u201cOur group is a mix of all classes. Which, again, as a coach, that\u2019s what you live for. You want to have the future, but you also want to have some veterans that are leading it along.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Indians also had the benefit of playing the league championship on their home course at Stagg Hill, something Leroux said the team embraced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey loved it. They were very excited,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cObviously, Stagg Hill takes care of us. They really support us, and they really care about the girls\u2019 golf program. And we want to do right by them. So whenever someone comes into our home course, we want to make sure that we show love to the place that we play at the most.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the league title continues Manhattan\u2019s run of success, Leroux said there is still plenty for the Indians to improve before regionals and state.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust getting more experience with the game of golf and learning how to score in ways that arise during a competition,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cAgain, we\u2019re a little inexperienced, so sometimes you can see that growth kind of happening in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Leroux begins to put his own stamp on the program, he said he remains mindful of the foundation built by former coaches Paige McCarthy and Chris George.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust again, want to give a shoutout to Coach McCarthy, who really built this, and Coach George even before her. They really built this thing into a machine that just pumps out really good girls and really good golfers,\u201d Leroux said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to put my own twist on it, but also live up to the shoulders of giants that I\u2019m standing on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manhattan will return to action Wednesday at the Lawrence Invitational at Eagle Bend Golf Course. The Indians will then compete in the Hutchinson Invitational Thursday at Carey Park before returning to Stagg Hill to host the Manhattan Invitational Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manhattan enjoyed a beautiful day Monday, with near-perfect conditions for golf at Stagg Hill Golf Course. The Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2014,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-359499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-golf","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}