![Senior Jett Mckinney stores all the clothes in his own room, with half of it stored in his closet along with his personal clothes, and the rest taking up space in his room.
“There’s been times [when] there’s so much clothing stored here and it gets overwhelming, so I end up having to sleep somewhere else in the house,” Mckinney said.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DSC_0951-1200x800.jpg)
![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.jpg)
Racing Into the Season
Cross Country Participates in the 23rd Annual Cedar Park Invitational
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna-600x400.jpg)
![After running the 3200m event with a time of 10:26.49 at the track State Competition on May 7, freshman Isabel Conde De Frankenberg shows off her first medal of the day. Conde De Frankenberg also earned silver for her time of 2:09.21 in the 800m event. “It felt amazing to earn a gold medal at state,” Conde de Frankenberg said. “It was very exciting to know that my training over the season paid off. This state competition was very memorable to me because it was my first [state] competition, so it was just really exciting being able to go out there as a freshman and accomplishing what I did.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/IMG_1518-475x317.jpg)
With the finish line in sight and a 15-second lead, junior Isabel Conde De Frankenberg pushes her way through the final stretch of the Cedar Park Invitational. Conde De Frankenberg would go on to win the varsity girls 5K race for the second year in a row. “It was a good turnout, it was really fun,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “I love our school course, it was good being able to run on there and represent your own course.”
Fear, anger, motivation: these are some of the many feelings dozens of athletes felt as they approached the spray-painted starting line of the Cedar Park XC Invitational.
As a new school year starts, so does a new season for the school’s cross country team, who participated in the CP Invitational 5K on Sept. 12. Located at Cedar Park’s home turf, the CP Invitational has been running annually for 23 years, with hundreds of schools from across the state in attendance, in hopes of outperforming their competition in this community-gathering event.
“It’s such a fun meet,” senior and varsity athlete Ben McDanald said. “I’m so glad that so many community members and students and faculty were able to come and support, and it was a huge fundraiser for the team.”
Beyond the races, the team has been tighter than ever as well, with fresh faces being introduced to the team, including the new cross country coach, Hunter Russell.
“[Coach Russell] is definitely a good coach‒ he’s really motivational,” junior Isabel Conde De Frankenberg said. “He’s a lot more strict than our old coach, but he’s definitely helped the team by building up the whole team aspect and the community, and just helping us put effort into our running and not just like actual running, but with the team, and being strong.”
In addition to helping motivate the team further, Russell has also aided the team by implementing many new aspects into the training program.
“[Coach Russell] has done a lot for the team,” McDanald said. “He’s introduced more efficient strength training for injury prevention, and a lot more high-volume workouts to help increase our speed and stamina.”
With a strong team spirit clearly present throughout the athletes, according to Conde De Frankenberg, another important characteristic for the racers is setting up goals for themselves to follow and reach during the run of the season.
“I want to go to State, I want to do good at State,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “I also want to try and make it to Nationals, which I haven’t done before because it was canceled last year because of COVID. I just want to keep dropping time and seeing where I go.”
On top of getting the fastest times possible to qualify for the most competitive meets, another factor about setting goals for the team is the ways athletes can utilize them to help bounce back even after serious injuries, such as McDanald, who suffered from a critical knee injury during the summer.
“I spent five weeks not running, and instead [found] other ways to cross train and keep my fitness up,” McDanald said. “I was finally able to run without pain in my knee, so now I am back doing workouts with the team and racing. Not running for so long has really set me back, so I’m working hard to make up ground and get back to where I was. It’s my senior year, my final season, and I’m ready to get back into it.”
Anthony Luparello is a senior and first year reporter. In addition to being a part of the Wolfpack, he is also a staff member for the Wolfcast, Cedar Park’s Broadcast Program. His favorite part about journalism is being able to write influential and impactful stories in hopes of inspiring others. After he graduates, Anthony wants to pursue and major in Broadcast Journalism at either the University of Oklahoma, University of North Texas or University of Texas at Austin. Outside of school, Anthony enjoys biking, filmmaking, cooking, going out with friends and listening to Black Midi, MF DOOM and Beyoncé.
