![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)
Getting into position at the start of the course, they anxiously wait to hear the sound of the horn. Lined up with eyes ahead, the horn blares, initiating the first race of the season. As they take off, the colors of other school jerseys swarm around them, engulfing them in a sea of determined runners. They are all going to the same place, it is just a matter of who they can pass in the process.
The team’s next meet is the McNeil Cross Country Invitational on Saturday where they will run the Old Settler’s Park course. To start their season, the cross country team has had two pre-season meets, one at Temple and another at Vista Ridge. They also hosted the Cedar Park invitationals on Sept. 9. The invitational acts like a kick-off for district meets as they will be attending more in the upcoming weeks. The Temple invitational meet was on Aug 18.
“We have a lot less meets this year so we’re focusing more on training and making sure we’re ready for the meets we’re racing in,” senior Sanil Desai said. “I’ve never raced at Temple before so a lot of it was getting used to the course and getting used to racing again.”
Returning to school after the summer, Desai started his last cross country season on the varsity team this year with a new coach. In the past three years, the team has had three different coaches. Runners met the new coach at the end of summer before school started.
“It’s tough because coaches have different training regiments so every year you’re changing your training,” Desai said. “It was harder to adjust when we were younger during sophomore and junior year, but as a senior, it’s easier because [we have] done it more.”
During the last month of summer, the team went on runs and practiced together. Senior Isabel Conde De Frankenberg spent the majority of her summer running for the Argentina national team and did not have an opportunity to run with her team before the start of school.
“I came back from Argentina on the first day of school so my first practice was the first day of school,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “My team was working hard the whole summer and the new coach came in July, so they’ve been training for a long time. I think the whole team is excited for this season.”
While her team was starting their meets earlier this season, Isabel spent her time training and preparing for a longer season that ends with Nationals in December. Because she is in the top five runners in the state, Conde De Frankenberg’s season ends after the rest of her team’s does, so she started her season two meets later than them. Her first meet of the season was at the Cedar Park Invitational meet, where she placed first.
“I had done the Cedar Park course every year, so I felt a little bit of pressure because I had won it every year and needed to keep the streak,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “I really like the course because there’s no sidewalk or track, just gravel, grass, and dirt. It’s a place I have trained every day for five years, and it just feels like home. It was an honor to be able to win.”
The team is currently training for the upcoming district meets and while they still have many more meets to come, championship season is approaching. The team lost a lot of their runners and is much smaller now, but new athletes are coming to fill their spots.
“In seventh grade, running was easier for me because I didn’t have a lot of expectations or pressures,” freshman Lyla Gamez said. “Now I have expectations for myself [and] it’s super easy to mentally be really hard on myself. I’m excited for this upcoming season, but as we close in on championship season, I’m nervous. After the first races I know what to expect.”
