![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.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)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.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)
![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)
![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)
March Madness Is Right Around The Corner
Noah Hedges gives insight on why your bracket got busted.
February 20, 2019
For college basketball fans, the best part of the season is coming up in just a few weeks: March Madness. College students and alumni will sit in front of their TVs on March 17 waiting to see if their school basketball team makes the top 68 to be in the tournament.
A unique part of the tournament is that everyone in the world has a chance to predict who will win each and every game. ESPN offers an absurd amount of money to anyone who submits a perfect prediction bracket, which means that every prediction for each of the 67 games was predicted correctly. Ever since the online predictions have been on the internet, no one has ever predicted a perfect bracket.
In 2017, the tournament was a lot different than expected. Solid teams were losing to teams that weren’t as good, as Virginia (No. 1 seed) lost to UMBC (No. 16 seed). The upset number from last year was 13, which means that 13 teams took the dub over the better seed.
Upsets and blowouts are two very distinct types of games in the March Madness tournament, but the Cinderella stories are the most exciting to watch. The Cinderella story of last year was Loyola Chicago. They had their first tournament bid since 1985, and that was only the start. They were placed as a No. 11 seed in the South Region. In the first round, they upset the No. 6 seed Miami Hurricanes to move on to face the strong No. 3 seeded team of the Tennessee Vols. The world was shocked at that, but they didn’t let up. Following upsetting Tennessee, they stunned the No. 7 seed Nevada and No. 9 seed Kansas State. Four upsets. Four rounds. Possibly the most exciting team to ever play in the tournament.
This year, most of the same teams will be making an appearance in the tournament. Typically, the top five seeds from each region will consistently make the tournament. Most of the AP poll ranked teams at the end of the regular season will make the tournament, along with other teams from around the country to fill in the rest of the 43 spots.
Rolling into Week 15, the top 5 teams in the country are 1. Tennessee, 2. Duke, 3. Gonzaga, 4.Virginia and 5. Kentucky. These rankings seem normal, as all five of these teams have been rotating in and out of the top five for years now.
Freshman star Zion Williamson has been on fire in his first year at Duke, as he plans to take the team deep into the tournament, while they sit right now at 21-2. They lost to a solid Gonzaga team early on, and they were stunned by Syracuse in a nail biter, but Duke seems to have their team together moving forward toward the tournament. Duke is normally a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, and this year, they will most likely be a No. 1 seed, due to their strong regular season record.
Gonzaga has always been a hit or miss team, although in the past few years, they’ve been a hit in the AP poll. The Gonzaga team right now is ranked among the most dominant teams in the last decade of college basketball. They are also sitting at 21-2, with losses to Tennessee and North Carolina. Gonzaga will be a team to watch in the tournament this year.
Tennessee has always been a solid team in the NCAA, but this year, they’re proving that they deserve the top spot in the country. They’ve only lost one game this year to Kansas at the beginning of the season, but no w they are rolling into week 15 with a 22-1 record. Since the SEC is a tough conference for all sports, Tennessee will be tested leading up to the tournament, as they play Kentucky two more times before the end of the season.
Other teams to watch would definitely be tournament returnees Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Michigan State and Villanova. Houston is also a huge contender since last year they fought to the Sweet 16. All of the other teams in the top 25 have a good shot at making the tournament, but no one can pinpoint seed placements or game opponents until Selection Sunday, on March 17.
Back in 2010, when I was just seven years old, I decided I would fill out a prediction bracket for the 2010 championship tournament. Obviously, I had no idea what I was doing, but I predicted that Butler (No. 5 seed at the time) would win the whole tournament. I was pretty much on the nail, as Butler’s tournament came down to a last second shot that missed to go down to Duke. I will be making a prediction bracket once again for the 2019 tournament, so stay tuned for my prediction.
