![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)
He watches as each player gets ready for the upcoming drill. The girls surround their coach, listening for instructions. Coach calls out his name to join in on the drill and he smiles in excitement to get to play the game. The drill starts and he is locked in and focused on his goal of blocking the ball. The girls on the other side of the net jump, set, hit and immediately are blocked as the ball flies to the ground. The girls rally around him celebrating his big block.
The varsity volleyball team has a new addition to their team, junior Hadrian Hurn, a boys club volleyball player who joined as the Lady Timberwolves’ manager in the beginning of the 2023 volleyball season. He plays on the 17’s Molten team at Austin Junior Volleyball, an organization that has both girls and boys teams.
“I first started playing volleyball when I was about 14,” Hurn said. “I was at a friend’s birthday party, it was at a park and we were playing sand volleyball and I really enjoyed it and then started playing more often. After playing it with my friends, now two years later, I play for AJV.”
In his volleyball career, Hurn has always been a pinside hitter. Throughout his club season his coaches guided him to right-side hitter where he was utilized as a big blocker. Hurn’s club team travels to numerous club tournaments in and out of the state of Texas, competing in nine tournaments in total per season. Previously, Hurn competed on the AJV Boys 16 Adidas Team, which made it to the USA Boys Junior National Championship in Salt Lake City, Utah on June 29th through July 3rd, where they placed ninth out of 30 teams in the 16 USA division.
“My favorite memory as a volleyball player was when we were playing against our rival club, Houston Volleyball Academy,” Hurn said. “We were in the final match of the tournament playing for first place. We managed to win in the third set, placing first at the HVA Winter Classic and after we won everyone came storming onto the court. We finished that game around 10:15 p.m. and we all went to Whataburger because it was the only thing open at that time. This win led to multiple more medals later in the season and two bids to go to the USA Boys Junior National Championship.”
According to Hurn, it is common for boys volleyball players to become the managers of the school girls team. Most public schools do not have boys teams, so the boys volleyball players often join the girls teams as managers to stay involved and connected with the sport.
“Being a manager I am able to help out with practices and get to watch all the games,” Hurn said. “Being a manager also helps me as a player because I can watch high level volleyball and watch how people better than me play and apply the playing style or techniques and form to how I play in my practices and games. It was a little hard at first managing club, school volleyball, work, and school but I have now found a flow and things have gotten so much easier because I force myself to set specific times to get work done and keep track of assignments.”
As the school volleyball season comes to an end in November, volleyball players begin to shift their focus onto clubs. According to Hurn, he will miss having an easy fourth and eighth period and game day food, but mostly he will miss watching the games and cheering on the team. He also will pursue volleyball in college in hopes of a college scholarship and has started the recruiting process.
“I am ready for the club season,” Hurn said. “I am most looking forward to getting the opportunity to possibly play up in the 18’s division, which will be really good for developing as a player and I will be playing at a really high competitive level. I feel like at the national tournament we could have gotten a lot better than ninth because the teams we lost to were not at the same level as us, but placing ninth my first actual season playing is pretty good.”
