![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)
![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)
The squeaks of sneakers on the court are drowned out by the sounds of the student section’s shouts. The players look around for a way to get the ball past the other team’s defense. His teammate looks at him and within seconds the ball is his. He runs up the court and takes the shot. It’s in.
Averaging 9.4 points per game, sophomore Nabil Ismail was the second highest scoring player on the varsity team.The team made it to playoffs and finished 3rd in their district. He also averaged 2.3 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game and overall top five in every stat. On a district level, Ismail was ranked seventh for points per game, fourth in rebounds, and fourth in assists.
“This season was really fun and I enjoyed playing with the team, they’re all good players and they’re all nice,” Ismail said. “I appreciate the way my team fought through adversity, the difference between our team and others is that we all like each other and there’s no issues and we can all talk to each other.”
The game he was most nervous for was the first game of the season against Westwood. He said he was worried because of what he had heard about varsity being different than any other level of basketball. He said he was able to get over it and made his first layup in this game.
“My biggest accomplishment this season was in the San Antonio tournament against Nixon,” Ismail said. “I had 22 points, it felt great because we won that game in triple overtime and I felt like I was able to contribute a lot to the team. My biggest fear when playing is not doing enough personally to help get my team the win.”
Ismail was the youngest on the team and he said that being the youngest on varsity was fun, but he had to earn his respect. Nonetheless, Ismail said he felt the upperclassmen made it easy for him to fit in and that one of the things his team is best at that helps him is the chemistry.
“We try to do team bonding outside of school at least once a week somewhere,” Ismail said. “Team chemistry is important because if you don’t have chemistry you are not going to know how each other play on the court and you have to be able to know what everyone’s good at so you can play the best as possible.”
Almost half of the team this past season were seniors, with Ismail only being a sophomore, he said he will miss their energy, enthusiasm, and how fun they made the season.
“They used to tell us how to do things and set us up for success,” Ismail said. “Reid Vines really helped me through this season, he had been playing basketball for a long time, been on varsity for a couple of years, and he was able to help me get accustomed to how things work varsity.”
Ismail has been playing basketball for eight years and when not in season for school, he plays for Centex, an AAU team, who’s season started in March. He played basketball for school all three years of middle school and practices by himself on his own time outside of school.
“My parents really pushed sports onto me and basketball always caught my eye as something that looks like a lot of fun,” Ismail said. “I have been working on my game and developing very well and the coaches have done a great job with me.”
He says his playing style is very balanced but Ismail prefers attacking the rim for layups and creating open shots for his teammates. Ismail says that he hopes his team can go to playoffs again next year and advance further. His personal goal is to average 15 points per game. In the future he hopes to play in college at a D1 or D2 school. For now, the team works on lifting and shooting to prepare for next year.
“I was very happy that I did well on varsity just to know that I got to playoffs,” Ismail said. “I wanted to win that first game but it’s all good, I’m just glad we were able to get to playoffs because none of [my teammates] have gone to playoffs yet.”
