![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.jpg)
Cheer Rises To The Occasion
Journey To State Competition, Plan For National Competition
![Varsity cheerleaders perform during the cheer regional competition on Oct. 17. After regionals, the team moved to the state competition where they placed fifth. “We know that fifth is in state is still an awesome rank, but just to know that our routine could’ve been better is still [disappointing]," senior cheer captain Alyssa King said.
"On the bright side, our loss has only encouraged us to bring our 'A' game to our first national competition in Florida.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/aja-steiner-134.jpg)
Varsity cheerleaders perform during the cheer regional competition on Oct. 17. After regionals, the team moved to the state competition where they placed fifth. “We know that fifth is in state is still an awesome rank, but just to know that our routine could’ve been better is still [disappointing],” senior cheer captain Alyssa King said. “On the bright side, our loss has only encouraged us to bring our ‘A’ game to our first national competition in Florida.”
February 3, 2020
From cheering on other students and hyping them up at pep rallies to participating in multiple off campus functions, the Cedar Park cheer team does a lot during their school year. Along with these activities cheer also prepares routines starting in October for competition.
This competition season, cheer attended regionals in November located in Austin and placed fourth, the highest rank out of all of the attending 5A schools. After regionals cheer continued to work and then attended the state championship and placed fifth out of sixty four other schools.
“Walking into a competition[state] that you’ve won two years in a row is very intimidating,” senior cheer captain Alyssa King said. “Cheer teams look at Cedar Park and think ‘I want to beat them’ and it’s almost like the movie, ‘Bring It On’, environment.”
Before cheer was able to compete at state, there were multiple steps that had to be met. First off in March of 2019, the same time as regular varsity tryouts, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) team was also chosen. The team was then finalized at the annual team camp in June.
“The judges look to see who the people with the strongest tumbling and stunting skills are,” first time UIL team member and sophomore Julia Childress said. “You also have to be very spirited and good at engaging a crowd because it’s a spirit competition.”
In October, cheer began to learn, choreograph and clean their routine in order to ensure that it was perfect before January, or competition month. The overall competition routine consists of four parts which are learned and cleaned separately to be combined into one “final” routine. The four parts are a band dance, a sideline situation chant, a cheer and the fight song.
“We learn the routine from Maddoux because she used to coach the team and she has lots of experience judging, but the captains also have input,” Childress said. “To clean the routine we hire someone who is part of the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) because she knows how to make the routine look better.”
After choosing the team, learning the routine, and cleaning the routine it is time for competition. During the UIL state competition days from Jan. 16-17, cheer performed a fight song, band dance, and cheer separately for the preliminary round. Cheer placed in the top twenty out of sixty-four teams which put them in the state finals.
“The fight song and band dance both went well for us, but when we were warming up the cheer, our stunts were nervous,” Childress said. “We [did] hit them in our performance so we were happy.”
About five hours after prelims cheer combined all four elements of their final routine and performed it for the state finals. However, during the routine, some stunts did not go as planned. Cedar Park wound up placing fifth overall, but King and Childress both stated that they are proud because it is still such a big accomplishment.
“It was really disappointing and there were many tears from everyone on the team,” King said. “We know that fifth is in state is still an awesome rank, but just to know that our routine could’ve been better is still [disappointing]. On the bright side, our loss has only encouraged us to bring our ‘A’ game to our first national competition in Florida.”
The national competition is Feb. 7, in Orlando Florida. Cheer will be visiting Disney World while in Florida and King commented that this trip will be a good team time.
“Nationals will be a great bonding experience at Disney World and we can only hope that the competition will be as fun as the trip,” King said.
Before Nationals can happen, cheer is working hard during their school class period and adding after school practices to the calendar to perfect their routine.
“For nationals we have worked non stop at correcting our mistakes that the state judges commented on and trying our best to perfect them,” King said. “ [We’ve worked] our butts off, even if it’s not the most fun thing to do.”
Overall, the cheer team is proud of their state accomplishments and say that it has only pushed them harder in preparation for Nationals in two weeks. Childress, as a first time UIL team member, commented on her experience.
“I didn’t know what to expect, but I really enjoyed it,” Childress said. “I got a lot closer with many of the girls on the team because of all of the hard work we put in together. When you are competing you are not just doing it for yourself, you are doing it for your other teammates as well.”
