![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)
![Students drew chalk art in honor of Veterans day. This is just one of many things the school does to show appreciation to veterans, and the art will remain in the courtyard as a reminder of all of the veterans who served their country. “On veteran’s day, I think it’s a great thing we do at school to honor people that served [who are] at our school or family members,” English teacher and cheer coach Nadira King said. “It makes me feel proud, and it makes me remember the [veterans].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Capture.png)
![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)
![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)
![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)
![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)
After being hyped by his teammates, he moves closer to the starting block to prepare for the start of the race. He looks back to his teammates as they cheer for him in the background. He then puts his goggles on and gets in a ready position. He hears the countdown finish and the horn blare. He dives in to begin his race.
The swim and dive team started their season with new head coach Kyla Garguilo, who previously taught and coached in St. Johns, Florida, after losing their last head coach to a medical emergency.
“Our coach gives us real workouts for practice,” senior Brooke Kramer said. “She gives us good workouts that are actually effective and knows what she’s doing and she can command the attention of the whole team. Past coaches that we have had could not command the respect of the whole team, so people were less likely to try and do the sets to their best effort. Now everyone is improving because they are more motivated to try.”
According to Kramer, practices begin with stretches led by captains, then freestyle swim. They also practice specific strokes like backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly for a short period of time. The practices vary per day whether they will focus on sprints, short distance swimming or long distance swimming. Practices are held Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at Milburn Park and Buttercup pool. On Thursday, the team focuses on dry land practice, which is out-of-the-water practice, where they develop their strength with Calisthenics.
“Calisthenics helps in the water because it builds muscles and makes you stronger,” Kramer said. “So we work on technique while we’re swimming, but building the muscles can help you be stronger as you use that technique.”
According to junior Savanna Williamson, swim meets are the way that the team bonds with one another. The team also makes it a priority to have people cheering for every person that competes in an event so they can feel supported during their race.
“Getting to hang out with my teammates is the most fun part about the meets,” Williamson said. “I have really bonded with everyone this year and everyone is so nice and great so having meets is a good way to meet your teammates that you didn’t know and so having those really helped us get closer as a team.”
Each meet varies, but typically relay events score 10 points for the team and individual events score three to five points; the team competes in 12 events per meet. The events are also have separated scores for the boys and girls teams. Whichever team has the most points at the end of all the races wins the meet.
“We are all super supportive of one another,” Williamson said. “It motivates people to try because they know all of their teammates are watching them and cheering them on, so I think it helps us a lot. At the end of the day, it is not just an individual sport, it is more of a team sport. Having your team there really helps even though you’re the only one swimming.”
Junior Parker Huang swims on a club team at Nitro Swimming, along with being a member of the school swim and dive team, and says that club swimming focuses on individual based performance rather than team performance.
“Club [swimming] is more of an individual thing,” Huang said. “It focuses more on yourself and really just trying to work hard on your own thing. The coach doesn’t really care about the benefit of the team because they focus on how someone does as an individual.”
The team focuses more on team-oriented performance and unifying everyone together as a program, Huang said. The performance of an individual is not as important, as club and the swimmers should be able to focus more on the team aspect of swimming and having fun with teammates.
“We are all really close and we work together well as a team,” Kramer said. “If you have a race there is always going to have at least one person behind your lane cheering you on. We even have had other teams tell us that they wish their team was as close as ours, and it’s such a fun environment to be in.”
The team will next compete at the AISD Invitational at the U.T. Swim Center on Oct. 27.
