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1946 – 1949
1946: The first IHSAA boys cross country state meet, in 1946–47, drew far more runners than the association expected and was run as two races with co-champions and duplicate awards. Anderson won one race; in the other, Mishawaka — coached by Walter Thurston — beat Fort Wayne North Side 72–104 over two miles at South Grove Golf Course in Indianapolis. Mishawaka is therefore a state champion of the first meet the IHSAA ever staged in the sport.
The near misses: Anderson's dynasty took the next two titles with Mishawaka second both times under coach Francis Hill: 56–73 in 1948–49 and 67–79 in 1949–50, at Coffin Golf Course.
The standing: The South Bend Tribune's October 2026 lineage of Northern Indiana Conference fall championships counts Mishawaka's 1946 title as the first of the conference's thirty-eight combined non-football fall titles — the oldest entry in the conference's book. The girls' side of the sport belongs in this century to Anna Rohrer, whose record stands whole in the athletes' entries.
Sources:
- IHSAA Boys Cross Country State Championship Records Book — team championship results 1946–47 (with the two-race note), 1948–49, 1949–50.
- South Bend Tribune, 21 October 2026 — the NIC fall-champions lineage from 1946.