![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)
Cheering for the Nation
Cheer Attends UCA National Competition For the First Time
With a strong stance, the varsity cheer team performs at state on Jan 16. Cheering at the their first National Cheer Championship and overall placing eighth in the nation, exceeded the team’s expectations. “We went to nationals because our team wanted a challenge,” sophomore Kristine Kim said. “We were coming back from a back to back state title and we wanted to step up our game and try something new.”
February 20, 2020
With flags, signs and stunts up in the air, cheer attended their first ever national competition from Feb. 7-8. The team placed eighth in the nation. After placing fourth in regionals in November and fifth in state in January, cheer used their motivation from state to be successful at nationals.
The competition team is finalized during cheer tryouts and the summer camp, and they perform the same routine at each competition. After school practices make up a lot of the preparation needed before any competition.
“Nationals was the ultimate competition, so we had to practice a lot,” senior captain Alyssa King said. “Beginning work in October and practicing it every single day was the whole year in [the] cheer [class] period, despite having pep rallies, football, volleyball, and basketball games to cheer at.”
King commented on how the end result of their state championship affected their views for nationals. She said the team kept positive energy, followed corrections and critiques to better perform their routine in Florida. Sophomore Kristine Kim similarly said that nationals was an opportunity to push their limits.
“We went to nationals because our team wanted a challenge,” Kim said. “We were coming from a back to back state title and we wanted to step up our game and try something new. We’re always up to a challenge.”
King convinced her coach to enter the competition with a friend after seeing an ad for the national competition on Instagram. King thought that with her team’s state champion title they could go far in the competition. Once they convinced Coach King, the team began fundraising.
“We fundraised a lot [through] selling cookie dough and multiple stunt clinics for the middle school cheerleaders and we made it to Florida,” King said. “It was supposed to be a fun little thing to do in Disney World, but it ended up being an awesome memory that I’ll have for life.”
Their placement exceeded their expectations and according to King throughout the trip the Cheer team grew closer and bonded.
“Honestly the trip was a lot of fun and I think the whole team can attest to that,” King said. “Getting to spend time together in Disney World was awesome whether it was walking around Magic Kingdom or waiting in a four hour line. We all enjoyed it very much and did not want to come home.”
