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Quite a Tradition: MHS Cross Country Hits
Half-Century
The 2005 season marked the 50th season of cross country
at Manhattan High School, and an opportunity to look back at a program
that has won four state championships and crowned numerous all-state
runners.
The school's first coach was Ray Hower, who started the
program in 1956. His assistant in the late 1960s was Bill Congleton, who
took over the program in 1970 and by the mid-1970s had grown the program to more than 100
runners.
Congleton's 1977 girls team won the school's
first-ever state title in the sport -- it was also the first official
state cross country meet for Kansas girls. He followed with three more titles --
another one for the girls in 1979 and two for the boys in 1983 and 1984 -- before retiring
in 1996.
During Congleton's years as head coach, the girls team
qualified for state 20 years in a row -- and finished in the top 5 17
times. The boys' teams qualified 18 straight years and finished in the top
5 seven times.
In 2002, Congleton was inducted into the Kansas State
High School Activities Association's Hall of Fame.
Scott Mall, an assistant under Congleton, had his own
run of success, leading the girls program to four I-70
league titles and three runner-up finishes between 1996 and 2002. The MHS
boys team also won league titles in 1998 and 2002.
Susan Melgares became the program's fourth head coach in
2003. Melgares' girls squad won the I-70 title by one point over Topeka
High, and the
boys' team finished fifth at regionals -- just two points short of its
first state berth since 1998.
In 2004, the school made the move to the Centennial
League. The girls squad was third and the boys fourth in the league
meet. The girls went on to qualify for the state meet, where they
finished in 12th place. In 2005, the "plaque came back".
The MHS girls brought home state hardware with a 3rd place finish, while
the boys placed 9th in their first trip to state since 1998. The squads
graduate just one senior, boys captain Curtiss Feltner.
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