![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)
Running Cross The Country
Senior Tiras Pie Look Back on High School Career, Plans Moving Forward.
Senior Tiras Parker-Pie runs the two mile race in the team’s first track meet of the season on Feb. 6. The team got first place in the meet against Rouse. “This was one of the few races I was able to participate in before quarantine, but I still gave it my all,” Parker-Pie said. “I will be committing soon to run in college which I am very excited about and hope to take this sport as far as I can.”
May 20, 2020
Making varsity cross country is never easy, especially when it’s on as competitive of a team as Cedar Park. That’s why senior Tiras Pie had to fight in order to cement himself as an integral part of his team. It took more than just hard work and dedication, it also required him to grow as a person and look at himself in order to see what needed to change. This paid off and his experiences at CPHS have helped change him for the better.
Pie came into cross country as a freshman, but by his senior year he had helped his team achieve third place at state, as well as help his team achieve the title of district champions on four separate occasions.
“I credit my success to the great people and teammates at my school,” Pie said. “As well as coach Grenner for understanding and going an extra limb to make sure I became the best athlete I could be.”
Pie plans to run Division 1 track and field on a scholarship fund at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. There he will be studying business management and he hopes to eventually go to Law school.
“One thing I learned at Cedar Park that will help me in the future is the skill to adapt to changes in my life,” Pie said. “Throughout my four years of high school we had three coaches, all very different and it is very hard to adapt to different systems and I was able to be successful in all.”
Pie said that Cross Country helped mold him into the person that he is today, as well as help teach him lessons that he otherwise wouldn’t get anywhere else.
“Cross Country has shaped me into a hard worker,” Pie said. “We get up at 6 a.m. for 80% of the year every morning and run sixty miles a week. We have to dedicate our sleep, eating, and fun around our training to become the best runner possible. It has taught me how to work hard and dedicate myself to something, despite the pain.”
Pie claims that his greatest mistake was not realizing that life is to short to get hung up with all the little things. He feels that if he had refocused on what was important rather than the tiny inconvenience that happened in the past he would’ve have saved himself so much time and effort.
“My advice to future Cedar Park students is to embrace the current moment and stay in the moment,” Pie said. “Don’t take it for granted because it will be over fast so give it everything you got and have the most fun possible.”
