Talented senior class aiming to close out Cedar Park career with title

Photo Credit: Scott W. Coleman

Cedar Park senior Luke Williams sat in the stands at NRG Stadium in Houston in 2015 and watched as the Timberwolves won the state football title and said to himself that that could be him one day.

Five years later, it is.

A talented group of seniors that have been hearing they were special for years has the opportunity to fulfill a self-assigned expectation to go out state champions as Cedar Park takes on Denton Ryan Friday night at AT&T Stadium.

“As a little kid, you’re raised to want to play for a state championship here,” Williams said. “They told us in the seventh and eighth grade that we were going to go play for a state championship. You have to have that mentality.”

Head coach Carl Abseck knew this was a uber-talented class when they were in seventh grade, and they’ve continued to mature and get better over time.

“Coaches are always looking at the group ahead of them and the group behind them to see how it all fits together,” Abseck said. “They had the pieces and leadership and work ethic that you look for as a coach.”

Many of the seniors started playing together in fifth grade when they could start to play tackle football. A dominant and undefeated eighth-grade season was followed by an even more dominant junior varsity season.

After a blowout win by the Cedar Park JV team over Waco Midway, the coaches told them it felt more like a varsity game.

“We truly have been planning it,” senior receiver Gunnar Abseck said. “We said in seventh grade that we were going to win state when we’re seniors. You could take it that it’s a great thing to think about, but we were serious.”

They had a clear path to follow.

Cedar Park won its first state title in 2012. The Timberwolves returned to the state championship game in 2014 and lost by three points, but returned in 2015 and won when the current senior class was in middle school.

“We had good role models and good people to lead us in the right way and show us how it’s supposed to be done,” senior defensive end Hunter Hewitt said. “We’ve been working hard for this every day since fifth grade.”

You can’t take two steps inside the Cedar Park fieldhouse without knowing the scores, rosters and dates of the title-winning teams.

“That’s why it’s all over the walls — we want them to see it,” Abseck said. “This is what’s come before you. So many places have never done it. You don’t know you can do it until you do it. Everybody behind them knows they can do it.”

Senior quarterback Ryder Hernandez moved to Texas from California in 2015 and got to experience what it was like to win at Cedar Park.

“Coming in and seeing the culture they had going on here was great, and it was something I wanted to be a part of,” Hernandez said. “These guys embraced me and showed me how things worked around here. It’s been fun ever since.”

He’s thrown for 4,240 yards and 58 touchdowns this season, cementing his legacy as one of the best Cedar Park quarterbacks in the school’s young history.

There’s talk — mainly from outside sources — whether this is the best Cedar Park team of all time.

Well, is it?

“We have to go win a state title to even be in that conversation,” Hernandez said.

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Originally published at https://www.hillcountrynews.com/stories/talented-senior-class-aiming-to-close-out-cedar-park-career-with-title,83798?