Manny Myers gave Mulvane everything. In his final act, he delivered a title
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- Manny Myers spent four years playing football, basketball and baseball for Mulvane.
- Myers played his final game for Mulvane on a Friday afternoon.
- Myers carried the biggest hits, the final outs and the town's hopes.
There are only so many times a high school athlete gets to answer the call before there are no games left, no seasons left, no more chances to give his hometown one final piece of himself.
For four years, Manny Myers had answered for Mulvane.
He answered on fall nights as the Wildcats’ quarterback. He answered in winter gyms as one of their toughest basketball players. He answered all spring from center field, where he could see his brothers spread across the same diamond.
Then came Friday afternoon, one final game in a Mulvane uniform and one last chance to stamp himself into school history.
No bullpen. No warning. No time to ease into the pressure.
Myers jogged in from center field, took the baseball in the third inning with Mulvane trailing Topeka Hayden by two runs and, despite not having pitched in more than a month, turned his final act as a Wildcat into the ending Mulvane had waited 40 years to celebrate.
By the time Myers threw the final pitch of the Class 4A state baseball championship game at Tointon Family Stadium, Mulvane had secured a 9-4 victory, its first state title since 1986 and the kind of ending that seemed almost too perfect to be real.
Myers had not pitched in a game since April 21. He had thrown only five innings all season. But Mulvane’s path to the championship had already required two walk-off wins, leaving the Wildcats’ pitching staff stretched thin.
So Mulvane coach Steve Nelson looked to center field.
“Nothing fazes the kid,” Nelson said.
The circumstances did not matter. Just like he had done for four years in every sport, Myers did not complain and did not flinch. He simply took the ball and gave the Wildcats exactly what they needed.
Myers fired 4 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and two walks. He also delivered two hits and three RBIs from the leadoff spot, including the go-ahead single in the fourth inning and a two-run single in the fifth that broke the game open.
“I was just sitting here thinking about how much a kid like Manny Myers deserves this,” Nelson said. “Because of everything he has given to our programs for all four years. He has given everything he’s had. He’s a Mulvane kid, through and through.”
Myers was an all-state football player and a three-year starting quarterback who helped Mulvane win 15 of its 20 games over the past two seasons. He was an honorable mention all-state basketball player who averaged 11.8 points, a team-high 4.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 2.0 steals this winter. In baseball, the Butler Community College signee hit .404 with 46 runs, 17 stolen bases, 26 RBIs and a .587 on-base percentage.
But in his final act as a Wildcat, Myers helped Mulvane finish a 28-1 season with the second baseball state championship in program history.
“It was a lifelong dream to be part of the team at Mulvane,” he said. “And now here we are…”
Myers had the arm talent. Nelson knew that. The luxury for Mulvane was that the Wildcats had been deep enough on the mound all season that they rarely needed Myers to pitch. His glove, range and arm in center field were too valuable.
He did not throw any extra bullpen sessions during state week. He did not change his routine. He simply stayed ready, the same way he had stayed ready for whatever Mulvane needed from him in three sports across four years.
Then Myers walked into the middle of the storm and calmed everything down.
After Myers escaped the jam in the third inning, the Wildcats responded in the bottom of the fourth. Hudson Myers, his younger brother, drew a leadoff walk, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored when Manny punched an RBI single to give Mulvane a 5-4 lead.
An inning later, Manny came through again. With the bases loaded after two walks, he delivered a two-run single that stretched the lead to 8-4.
He never gave Hayden a way back in.
“It was a little nerve wracking, but I knew I was capable of doing it and I knew I could do it,” Myers said. “It was just my time to step up.”
For the Myers family, this spring was already a dream before the trophy was ever lifted. Manny is a senior. Hudson and Grady are twin brothers and juniors. All three started for Mulvane’s championship team with Manny in center field, Hudson beside him in left field and Grady at second base.
Grady hit .431 with 36 runs, 19 stolen bases, 20 RBIs and a .584 on-base percentage. Hudson hit .257 with 27 runs and 17 RBIs. Together, the three brothers made up a third of Mulvane’s lineup.
They also made up the emotional center of one family’s unforgettable season.
“They really are everything to me,” Manny said of his brothers. “We do just about everything together. They mean the world to me and being able to play alongside them in my final game, I couldn’t think of a better feeling.”
Brothers so close in age can turn everything into a contest. There was some of that with the Myers boys, especially in driveway basketball games or whatever broke out around the house.
But with Grady, Manny and Hudson, competition never turned into jealousy. They practiced together, trained together, lifted together and supported each other through everything. They pushed each other. They protected each other. More than anything, they were best friends.
“I’m telling you, it feels like I have triplets,” Pete, their father, said. “I truly feel like I’ve been blessed by God.”
That’s what made Friday’s ending even more powerful.
“There’s nobody I would rather see that happen to in the world,” Grady said about watching Manny become the hero in his final game. “It’s just so cool to see your older brother who you always looked up to do that.”
Hudson could not help but think about the years when the Myers boys were the kids in the stands, dreaming about what it might feel like to be the ones wearing Mulvane uniforms.
“It’s just an unbelievable feeling,” Hudson said. “I remember growing up and coming to the games and watching our cousins play. And now this… it’s just an amazing feeling.”
Pete and Shelley understand what it means to wear those uniforms. Pete graduated from Mulvane in 1997. Shelley, a standout softball player, graduated in 1999. They stayed in town, raised their family there and watched their sons grow up around Mulvane sports.
To see three sons finish a season together with a state championship was almost impossible for them to fully process.
“It’s a father’s dream,” Pete said. “I realize not very many people across America get to say they have three of their kids play on the same team.”
When the boys were younger, Pete started a youth baseball team called the Wichita Wolfpack, built around a core of Mulvane kids. They were coached by fathers, including Pete, Grey Sanders’ father, Parker Clubb’s father and Brody Clasen’s father. Years later, that same core group of Mulvane kids were the same ones on the field when the Wildcats recorded the final out Friday.
“It really felt like I was watching 15 of my sons out there,” Pete said. “Coaching these guys for as long as I have, it truly felt like every single kid was an adopted son. I couldn’t have hand-picked a better group of kids for my sons to grow up with.”
Pete had helped coach the JV team in previous years, but before Manny’s senior season, he asked Nelson if he could step back. He wanted one year to simply be a father in the stands, watching the final season all three of his sons would share the same team.
“I loved coaching every single day and being with the team, but I told Steve that I wanted to step back and just enjoy this season from the stands and watch the boys play,” Pete said. “It turned out to be a pretty good choice.”
After the final out, the Myers family cried.
They cried because Mulvane had won. They cried because Manny had delivered the final outs. They cried because three brothers had reached the top of Kansas high school baseball together.
Then came the other kind of tears — the ones that arrive when joy bumps into finality. Manny had worn a Mulvane uniform for the last time. The three brothers had played their final childhood game together.
Nelson understood that emotion better than most.
He was the bat boy for Mulvane’s 1986 state championship team, the group that made him fall in love with Mulvane baseball. He later played for the Wildcats, then returned to coach the program he had once idolized.
Now, 40 years later, he was the head coach of the team that brought Mulvane baseball back to the top.
With the Wildcats leading 9-4 and the final out approaching in the seventh inning, assistant coach Daniel Myers turned to Nelson and asked if he was all right. The two had grown up together, played baseball together, graduated from Mulvane together in 1993 and coached together for the better part of two decades.
Nelson did not answer.
He just stared straight ahead.
If he tried to speak, he knew he might break down.
There was Manny Myers on the mound, about to throw the final pitch. There was Mulvane, one out away from a championship four decades in the making. There were all the memories from 1986, all the years spent chasing that same feeling, all the people who had poured themselves into the program.
No words were needed.
After the final out, Nelson and Myers wrapped each other in a bear hug that had been building for 40 years.
“I still don’t even know if this is all really real,” Nelson said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just as emotional as anything.”
That was the beauty of Friday for Mulvane.
This was not just a team winning a trophy. It was Mulvane’s baseball history folding back into itself: the bat boy from 1986 now coaching, his childhood friend beside him and a senior who had given everything to Mulvane standing on the mound with his brothers, his teammates and his town behind him.
And when the Wildcats needed one final lift, Myers gave it to them.
“This couldn’t happen to a better community or a better town,” Manny said. “I am forever grateful to be a Wildcat.”
Asked what he would remember most about the championship, Manny started with the emotions.
The feeling. The joy. The kind of moment he wished he could bottle forever.
It was a fitting answer from a player who had spent four years carrying so much for Mulvane. Myers had shouldered expectations on Friday nights, in winter gyms and across spring diamonds. In his final game as a Wildcat, he carried the biggest hits, the final outs and the hopes of a town that had waited 40 years to celebrate like this again.
But when he thought about the weight of it all, Myers smiled and found one more way to make his family and teammates laugh.
“The thing I’ll probably remember the most,” he said, “is how heavy it was at the bottom of the dog pile.”
This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 7:00 AM.
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