“I felt like we had unfinished business,” Cunnigham said. “Everyone knows what happened last year and it was weighing on us. We wanted to prove everyone wrong and exceed our own expectations.”

So far things have gone well for the Hawks. After a strong showing in district they earned wins in both the bi-district and area rounds of the playoffs, qualifying for the regional quarterfinals in the process. The playoff wins included a 10-0 thrashing of Marshall last week in a game that, because of inclement weather, spanned almost six hours and two different fields before finally concluding.

“We were definitely pumped up,” Cunnigham said. “We had the one-game series so we felt the pressure, but we weren’t really worried. We wanted to prove their coach wrong and I think we did.”

While Cunningham is an ace on the mound for the Hawks she also plays first base for the team. While she enjoys her time at first, she says her heart lies on the mound.

“I like pitching better,” she said. “That’s my job. First base is fun but I’m a pitcher. That’s who I am.”

Cunningham began playing softball when she was four-years old when her father signed her up. She says her love for the game was not instant.

“My dad wanted me to do it,” she said. “I didn’t really like it but after a while I fell in love with it and I’ve been playing ever since.”

She says her favorite thing about playing is the bonds she forms with her teammates.

“I love being on a team,” she said. “The team becomes a family. That’s the best way to describe it.”

Cunningham recently announced she would continue her softball career at the University of Texas at Tyler, signing a letter of intent a few weeks ago. She explained her decision to go to Tyler came about after a chance meeting with the team’s coach.

“I was playing with my select team and their coach saw me play,” she said. “He talked to me and I fell in love with everything the school had to offer. It’s a great program, a top-notch program, and I wanted to play for a top team. He told me they needed a freshman pitcher and I’m going to be that pitcher.”

If Cunningham’s high school career is to continue past this weekend then the Hawks will have to get past the No. 1 team in the state, Ennis. The team’s ace believes her squad has what it takes to do just that.

“We have to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” she said. “We can’t over-do anything. I believe we have the talent and if we utilize that talent we don’t have to worry about anything else.”

Editor’s note: Cunningham no-hit Ennis to lead the Hawks to victory in the first game of their series. However, Hendrickson was unable to win either of the next two games and their season ended Saturday.

Helping to lead the charge of new talent has been junior point guard Taylor Ross. Ross entered play this week averaging 10.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, four steals and three assists per game. She has taken over running the Pflugerville offense and the team is flourishing with her at the wheel.

“We’ve been working hard,” Ross said. “We’re doing what we can. We are hustling. We are focused in practice. We have a lot of talent and that helps us win and we play together as a team.”

Ross has enjoyed continuing to play with her teammates from the junior varsity last year and watching things come together for them on the varsity this year.

“We’ve been playing together a long time,” she said. “It doesn’t feel any different. We have a lot of chemistry so we don’t have to start over.”

Ross said she began playing basketball in the sixth grade because he sister played.

“I jumped in and have kept playing,” she explained.

She says her favorite thing about playing is the time she spends in the gym.

“I like being on the court,” she said. “I love the intensity the games bring and playing with my team.”

After watching last year’s squad get eliminated just one game shy of the state tournament, Ross and her teammates this year are intent on playing at the Erwin Center in early March.

“We want to make it to state,” she said. “We just have to keep working hard.”

Just two weeks ago Betschart bested teammate (and defending district champion) Hector Flores to claim the 16-4A championship. For an encore he went to last weekend’s region race and took second place, earning a trip to this week’s state meet in the process.

“I knew I could win,” Betschart said of district. “But I knew it would be tough. My teammate (Hector Flores) has been close to me through the season. I felt relief to win and I was hoping the team would do well so we could win district. Unfortunately we couldn’t get that.”

Betschart and Flores have been competing against each other since last year when it was Flores’ turn to win district. Betschart said that slowly but surely he has caught up to his senior teammate.

“He would usually beat me as a sophomore,” he said of Flores. “Then, toward the end of track season I stared to get close to him. It’s been back and forth since.”

Betschart began running in the seventh grade for the career but says he looks forward to competing in track this spring. However, he still has more business to take care of in cross country and he’s hoping to go to region and extend his season for another week.

“I want to get in the top five and go to state,” he said prior to the region race. “I hope the team can qualify as well. I have to run as hard as I can and run the best I can. If I run my best I will be able to make it.”

Betschart will compete for the state championship this weekend at the state cross country meet at Old Settler’s Park in Round Rock.simple reason his friends were doing it.

“Everyone else was doing it so I wanted to try it out,” he explained.

His love of the sport has grown since as he has matured into one of the best runners in Central Texas. He says his favorite thing about running is the competition.

“Racing is a lot of fun,” he said. “I like running in the races and practicing with my teammates.”

Betschart played soccer last year and also was a member of the Hawk track team. He is unsure about whether or not he will continue his soccer career but says he looks forward to competing in track this spring. However, he still has more business to take care of in cross country and he’s hoping to go to region and extend his season for another week.

“I want to get in the top five and go to state,” he said. “I hope the team can qualify as well. I have to run as hard as I can and run the best I can. If I run my best I will be able to make it.”

A huge reason for Hendrickson’s success has been the play of middle blocker Glad Nawazo. Nawazo, a junior, is averaging close to two kills and one block per game as she helps the Hawks pick up win after win.

“The team is so talented,” she said. “We’re really good I think we’re going to go far.”

Nawazo first showed up on Hendrickson’s varsity roster at the end of last season. She was around as the Hawks were eliminated from playoff contention in a play-in game against Bryan Rudder and sees a big difference in this year’s squad.

“We all just want it,” she said. “Last year we didn’t get very far. This year we want to redeem ourselves and show we are a good team.”

While most of the players from last year’s team returned to play this year there was a big difference with the Hawk squad when the season started, they had a new coach. Carrie Morreira, who as an assistant last season, was now in charge. Nawazo said things have been great under Hendrickson’s new skipper.

“She’s amazing,” she said. “She’s a really good coach. She’s showed us a lot of techniques that help us. Her practices are effective. She works us hard but it’s fun at the same time.”

Nawazo began playing volleyball when she was in the seventh grade.

“The rest of my friends played, then I started to like it,” she said. “I thought I’d be better at basketball but I was terrible.”

Her favorite thing about playing is the way she feels after doing one of the things she does best, getting a kill.

“I love the feeling after getting a kill,” she said. “It’s like I just want to scream.

With another year of high school volleyball in front of her Nawazo is not thinking about playing in college. She is, however, focused on helping this year’s Hendrickson team get as far as it possibly can.

“We want to win district,” she said. “We definitely want to get to the third round of the playoffs. We have to keep fighting. There is always room for improvement.”

In the three games leading up to last week’s action, Johnson had rushed for 15 touchdowns. To bring some symmetry to his work Johnson had scored five times in each of the three games, ripping off five scores against Leander Rouse, LBJ and Connally as he led the Hawks to victory in each of those contests.

“I’ve been real blessed with the athleticism God gave me,” he said. “I play hard on every play, run hard on every play and I never give up.”

The final win in the remarkable three-game span was Hendrickson’s first-ever win over their PISD rivals, the Connally Cougars. Johnson said the win was especially sweet as he was unable to give a complete effort for the Hawks in their loss to the Cougars last year.

“It was great,” he said. “Last year I didn’t play to my full potential because I was injured on a kickoff in the first half. To have a tremendous night and to win meant a lot to me and the team.”

The three victories followed Hendrickson’s lone loss of the year, when they fell to Lake Travis in the second week of the season. After beating Elgin on Friday, the Hawks are 5-1 on the year and have won their first two district games. Johnson is happy with the way things are going and believes this year’s Hendrickson team has a good chance to have a special year.

“It’s been going real well,” he said. “We have a good chance to win district and go deep in the playoffs. We’re on a good path right now.”

Johnson says he has had a football in his hands for as long as he can remember.

“My dad started me when I was two,” he said. “I started playing Pop Warner when I was five. I enjoyed it and it was fun for so I kept going with it.”

He says the competition is his favorite part of playing

“I like competing,” he said. “I love the game and I love playing it. I love everything about it. I’ve been around it all my life.”

Johnson verbally committed to play for TCU earlier this year and he says he still plans to join the Horned Frogs when he’s done at Hendrickson. However, with four more regular season games and the playoffs in front of him, Johnson remains focused on helping the Hawks win.

“We want to keep on winning and try and make it deep in the playoffs,” he said. “Our chemistry has improved a lot since last year. We have to stick together as a group and not fall apart.”

“Once we got to know each other we started playing better,” Okpegbue said. “This team wants to make it to state and when we think of that it helps us to play harder.”

This season has been one of change for a Cougar team that reached the third round of the playoffs last year. Connally not only lost plenty of senior talent but also lost their coach as Christi Dreier quit just weeks before the start of practice. With so much turmoil, Connally had a tough time in pre-district, going 10-14.

“We have struggled a lot,” Okepegbue said. We lost our seniors and have new players and a new coach. We had to get used to him so it was a little rocky.”

However, as the team played together and under new coach Ruxton Williamson they started to gel, resulting in a fast start to district.

“He’s been around, but still we had to shift from how coach Dreier coached to how he coaches,” Okpegbue said of Williamson. “Things have been getting better.”

Okpegbue started playing volleyball in the seventh grade.

“My sister played so I tried out and I found out I was good at it,” she said.

She says her favorite part of playing is hitting, adding that she enjoys most the thing she does so well.

“You feel so powerful when you get a good kill,” she said.

Okpegbue, who was the district’s most valuable player last year, says she will continue her volleyball career in college but is not sure where. She still has things to accomplish in high school, however, and is not looking past those goals.

“I want to beat my record of 28 kills in a match and hopefully we can get to state,” she said. “We just have to work on closing out games and focus on the play of our back row.”

It’s been great,” Taylor said of the season. “We’ve been very good. I’ve had fun with the girls. We’re winning a lot and I’m helping the younger ones grow.”

While the Panthers blasted their way through their pre-district schedule they have hit a bit of a speed bump in district play. Pflugerville is just 1-3 entering this week’s games, but Taylor thinks the squad can turn things around.

“I think we’re not pushing hard to be successful,” she said. “We’ve been going off our preseason success and not doing what we did before. We just have to work harder.”

As one of the two seniors on the Panther squad, Taylor sees herself as one of the team’s leaders. She says she enjoys the role and tries her best to help her teammates any way she can.

“I try to be encouraging,” she said. “I seem to get very emotional when it’s a tight game and they’re depending on me. I accept that role. I feel like I’m a leader and can lead this team.”

Taylor began playing volleyball in middle school, though she says she did not get serious about the sport until her sophomore year of high school.

“I’m very athletic and no one could jump with me,” she explained when asked why she started playing.

Apropos of her statistics, Taylor says her favorite part of playing is getting a kill.

“I like the kills,” she said. “I like the intensity of the game when it’s tied up and you get a point and the crowd is yelling. It’s so exciting.”

Volleyball is not the only sport Taylor excels at. She is also a standout on the Pflugerville High basketball team and she says it is that sport that she will pursue in college. For now, however, she is focused on volleyball and helping her team get as far as it can this year.

“We want to win the rest of our games,” she said.

The Panthers senior second baseman, Wooten blasted a pair of doubles to help Pflugerville upset Westlake in the bi-district round of the playoffs. The victories were huge for the upstart Panthers who had an up-and-down season at best, before knocking off one of the top 10 teams in the state.

“One double came with two strikes and I knew what the pitch was,” Wooten said of his hits. “I knew it was coming and I was ready to hit the ball. On the other I was relaxed. I let the ball get deep and I hit it hard.”

The back-to-back victories over the Chaps were actually the second and third wins of the year for Pflugerville over Westlake. Wooten believed the Panthers were simply hungrier.

“I think they were overconfident,” Wooten said of Westlake. “We wanted those games more than they did. We stayed relaxed and did what we had to do.”

A three-year member of the Pflugerville varsity, Wooten has had a productive senior campaign. He was hitting .284 with 15 runs scored and 15 RBIs heading into last weekend’s area round playoff with Lufkin.

“It’s been really fun,” he said. “We have a lot of seniors and we’ve been playing together for four years. When we were freshmen we said we wanted to go far in the playoffs. Now it doesn’t matter who we play. We’re ready.”

As one of nine seniors on the Panthers team he said that he and his fellow classmates had been focused on having a special senior season since they first teamed up as freshmen.

“It’s something we’ve wanted since we were little kids,” he said. “Westlake was the number four team in the state but we weren’t scared. We did what we had to do.”

Wooten says he’s been playing baseball since he could walk and pick up a bat. He gained his interest from watching games on television and says it’s his mother who taught him to play.

“I have a love for this game,” he explained. ‘I think it’s the toughest sport to play mentally.”

Wooten plans to continue playing baseball in college but he’s unsure where. He said one possibility is Mars Hill College in Ashville, N.C., but he has not signed anywhere yet. Choosing not to think about the future, he is focused on extending this season for as long as possible.

“We can’t get too high up on (beating Westlake),” he said. “We have to stay calm and play other teams the way we played them. We’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been doing the past couple weeks.”

Editor’s note: The Panthers were knocked from the playoffs by Lufkin, falling in two games over the weekend, ending Wooten’s season in the process.

“I didn’t even know I hit them,” Scott said. “I was excited. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was trying my hardest to drive the runs it. I was happy to help contribute to the win.”

Scott’s shots, which happened in back-to-back at bats against Westlake, helped the Panthers defeat the Chaps in a best-of-three series and earn a bi-district title in the process.

“The first one was a surprise,” she said. “The second one I knew right off the bat.”

After winning the first game of the series, Pflugerville lost the second and was trailing in the third and deciding contest. Scott and her teammates quickly changed that, rallying to score 12 runs and end the game and the series after five innings.

“It felt great, especially as a senior,” she said. “We get to keep playing and not end our season.”

Scott is just one of three seniors on a team comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores. She says she has enjoyed her time with the younger players and has done her best to help them grow.

“It’s been tough to get everyone to play to their potential,” she said. “They are young, we just try and get us to play the best we can.”

Scott began playing softball when she was nine years old because she “wanted to play a sport.” She has blossomed from that point into one of the best players on the Panthers’ squad and will continue playing next year in college. Still, she says the reason she plays today is the same as when she started, because it’s fun.

“I play for fun,” she explained. “I like being able to come out here and play with my friends.”

Scott will continue her softball career at Southwestern University in Georgetown in the fall.

“I liked the academic part of the school,” she said. “It’s small and it’s close to home.”

With a bi-district title under her belt, Scott is hopeful the Panthers can continue their playoff run for as long as possible.

“I want to play my best and try to contribute,” she said. “And we can see how long we can make this last.”

Editor’s note: Scott and the Panthers fell in two games to The Woodlands last weekend.

“Being on the team last year gave me the chance to see how things were done,” Shay said. “It was a good chance to see what it takes to be a varsity player.”

The Hawks did not just win district, they dominated it. Hendrickson did not lose a game in district play, outscoring their opponents 115-17 in the process. It was quite the turnaround for a team that lost nine of their first 12 games.

“It’s been a good season,” Shay said. “It started bumpy but we kept working hard and listening to our coaches. In the end it all worked out.”

Shay said that he and his teammates were confident they’d be able to turn things around.

“We knew how good a team we had, we just had to mesh together,” he said. “We have a lot of new guys and we had to get to know each other. Things started falling into place and we had a good district season.”

In the end the team clinched the district title by defeating the second place team, Bryan Rudder, on their home turf. The Hawks then put up 18 runs on Manor on Friday to finish district without a loss. Shay was key in both wins. He ripped a pair of hits against Manor to drive in four runs. He also scored twice. He had two more hits in the win over Rudder.

“It was exciting, especially the way we did it,” he said. “We were undefeated for the second year in a row and that was great. It’s a great way to go into the playoffs. It gives us momentum.”

Shay says he’s been playing baseball for as long as he can remember. He has embraced the sport and says he has loved it for as long as he has played. His favorite aspect of playing is the bond he builds with his teammates.

“I like having a good time with the guys,” he said. “You make good friendships and I have a lot of fun when I play. Winning a lot of games helps out too.”

With his career at Hendrickson almost over Shay hopes to get the chance to play baseball in college but as of the moment he has no concrete plans to do that. As the Hawks head into the playoffs this weekend he is hoping they can replicate, and improve on, their run last season.

“It would be nice to beat four rounds,” he said.

Shay said the key for the Hawks to keep winning would be for them to keep doing what they’ve been doing.

“We have to play good defense and put the ball in play,” he said. “We’ve got to score when we get runners in scoring position.”

If the team does that and continues their winning ways then Shay sees no reason why they can’t keep playing all the way to the state tournament.

“Once we’ve got that far we might as well win it all,” he laughed.