Wolverines Compete at UIL Regionals!

Regional+Qualifiers%2C+including+%28top+row+left+to+right%29+senior+Annabelle+Anchondo%2C+junior+Emma+Stevenson%2C+senior+Alex+Alvarez%2C+junior+Xavyer+Mosqueda%2C+%28bottom+row+left+to+right%29+senior+Gabi+Garcia%2C+senior+Rosie+Hernandez%2C+senior+Oscar+Flores%2C+and+freshman+Lexi+Anchondo.

Leslie Daugherty

Regional Qualifiers, including (top row left to right) senior Annabelle Anchondo, junior Emma Stevenson, senior Alex Alvarez, junior Xavyer Mosqueda, (bottom row left to right) senior Gabi Garcia, senior Rosie Hernandez, senior Oscar Flores, and freshman Lexi Anchondo.

Annabelle Anchondo, Editor

After competing at multiple practice UIL academic meets, the Wolverines traveled to Nazareth on Thursday, March 23rd, to participate in this year’s district UIL meet. Throughout the day, Springlake-Earth competitors participated in their designated events, and later, individuals would learn that their efforts earned SE 2nd place overall with nine students qualifying for regionals at SPC on April 21st.

“We had the nine students advance. We are one of the toughest districts in the state, and so when you have that many advance, its an honor,” principal Cindy Furr said.

At each UIL meet, teams are of the availability to advance as a team to the higher level. This year, the Social Studies team, coached by teacher Gwen Parish, advanced to regionals with senior Annabelle Anchondo in first place, senior Rosie Hernandez in second, senior Alex Alvarez taking sixth, and junior Emma Stevenson finishing seventh overall. All four individuals competed at regionals.

This was my first social studies team to advance as a team to the regional meet. I am very proud of them,” Parish said. “Social Studies is a hard contest because the topic changes every year, and the team members have to start studying from the beginning each time.” 

Being involved within the event all four years of high school, Hernandez is excited to have made it to regionals in Social Studies.

“Having the chance to advance to regionals was pretty nice,” Hernandez said. “This is my first year going to regional. Being in Social Studies takes hard work.”

In addition to these successes, the individual competitors within speaking events placed high enough to earn Springlake-Earth a 1st Place Speech Team plaque. Advancing to regionals in Informative and Persuasive Speaking are seniors Annabelle Anchondo (2nd place Persuasive Speaking) and Oscar Flores (1st place Informative Speaking), and juniors Lynnsey Mahler (1st place Persuasive Speaking) and Xavyer Mosqueda (3rd place Persuasive Speaking).

“It’s cool that they made. They are really smart people, and they talk really good,” Nehemiah Castillo, a district Informative speaker, said.

Two competitors made it to regionals in Ready Writing, one being Annabelle Anchondo (1st place) and the other, Lynnsey Mahler (3rd place).

“I have been doing ready writing for three years, and it felt great to advance with Anna one last year,” Mahler said.

Freshman Lexi Anchondo also made it to regionals in Editorial Writing after placing 3rd overall.

“I was so proud of Lexi for making it to editorial, especially since she’s only a freshman,” journalism coach Cassi Furr said. “I cannot wait to see how she competes in the years to come.”

To wrap up for the Springlake-Earth regional qualifiers, senior Gabi Garcia had the best overall biology score, earning her place at regionals for Science UIL.

“Getting the chance to go to regionals was a huge honor! I can confidently say that I tried my hardest, and I am super proud of my team for doing their best during district,” Garcia said. “I think it was really fun to participate on a team with so many people, and I especially appreciated being able to be on a team with my sister Lizzy during my last year at this school.”

At the regional meet at SPC, these nine competitors did their best; however, none of them advanced forward to state. The social studies team placed seventh overall. Mahler, Garcia, and the Anchondo siblings did not place within the top six of ready writing, science, or editorial writing. As for the speaking events, Flores and Mosqueda did not advance to finals, but Mahler and Anchondo did, taking 5th and 6th place as state alternates. The Wolverine Nation is proud of the nine who competed on SE’s behalf.

“All of our students represented well,” Furr said. “We did not have anyone advance to state, but I’m proud of how they represented Springlake-Earth.”