Sarai Estupinan was in 4th grade when her older brother joined a basketball team. Naturally, her parents signed her up for the same team where she would compete against the boys.

If basketball was the sport she wanted to play, then she was going to give it her all.

“I was blessed with the ability to play basketball, and I was blessed with parents that saw my ability and didn’t let me sit on it,” Estupinan said. “They wanted me to see how far and how much I could improve on that talent.”

It was one of those days for Cedar Park defensive coordinator Steve Battles where everybody on the defensive side of the ball was having a bad practice, and it was his job to make sure they knew it.

When his son, Shelby, who plays linebacker for the Timberwolves, got home, Steve had one question for him: How was practice?

“I coach him directly and there is no buffer,” Steve Battles said. “When I’m at home, I’m your dad, and when I’m at practice, I’m a coach and I’m going to treat you like everybody else. I’ve been as objective as I can. If he did good and is up for an award, I put him up for it. If he didn’t do good, then I don’t.”

From coaches to players to the community at large, one thing has been consistent at Cedar Park for more than a decade: work ethic.

As the Timberwolves prepare to face Denton Ryan in the fourth state championship appearance in school history, the roots of their current success can be traced back more than 20 years.

“When Chris (Ross) got there, he began to build the work ethic in these guys,” Joe Willis, who won the 2012 state title as head coach of the Timberwolves, said. “That’s been the Cedar Park culture. Our defensive guys were the kind of people that would tackle you through the ground, not to the ground. They still do that to this day, there’s a determination at Cedar Park.”

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.”

The Black Rain is still the Black Rain.

Every single time the Cedar Park defense was asked to step up this season, especially in the playoffs, the defensive unit has responded, and they’ll need to be as stout as ever as the Timberwolves go up against top-ranked Denton Ryan in the state championship on Friday night.

“It’s easy to look at our offense and all the athletes they have over there and think we’re a one-sided team, but the Black Rain is a tradition,” senior defensive back Josh Bretz said. “We’ve just gone out and done what we’ve had to do.”

Ryder Hernandez threw his first touchdown pass as a member of the Cedar Park varsity team on a trick in the late stages of a comeback win in the playoffs as a freshman.

“That’s when I knew Cedar Park was different than anywhere else,” Hernandez said.

Two seasons and many, many touchdowns later, he is quickly establishing himself as one of the best in a long line of talented and state-title-winning quarterbacks to suit up for the Timberwolves.

When Vandegrift took the field at Monroe Stadium on Friday night, the entire crowd was chanting one name: Tommy Hartman. 

Hartman has been the Vipers’ team manager for the last four years. But on senior night, on the first play of the game, he rushed for a 49-yard touchdown, a special moment for someone who has meant so much to the Vandegrift community. 

“Tonight’s been great,” Hartman said. “Coach decided to put me in to run for a touchdown. Vandegrift is a really good football program, one of the best in the state of Texas. It’s been great.”

Austin Smith will be the first to tell you he’s not the most effective hitter.

He was named district Defensive MVP in 2017 at Cedar Park and walked on as an infielder at Southwestern. He split time between third base and the bullpen his freshman year, and after finishing the season with an underwhelming .218 average, shifted to pitching full time.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Hayden Thomas and Cody Vannoy have been playing baseball together since they were eight years old.

They started on a Cedar Park Youth League team together and eventually reunited at Rouse, where they helped the Raiders win their first district title in 2017 and advancing to the regional quarterfinals.

Now, they've reunited once again as members of the Round Rock Hairy Men, a temporary expansion team in the Texas Collegiate League.

“We were on the Dodgers way back when,” Vannoy said.

After Round Rock lost to Westwood in the first round of district play this season, Kalen Murphy and the rest of the girls' soccer team weren't about to let it happen again.

The Dragons trounced the Warriors 4-0 at home in the second half of district play, one of the highlights of Murphy's senior year in high school.

"When we played them again, our midst totally changed and everybody was working together," Murphy said. "Playing for Round Rock, I met all my closest friends and they mean a lot to me. I know I can count on anybody for anything."

Bella Granada was nine years old when her competitive golf career ended.

There was one girl she really wanted to beat, so when she won a state title, Granada decided to go out on top and shift her focus to a sport that had much more of a team dynamic.

The senior midfielder has had many moments that have made her proud to be part of the Cedar Park soccer program.

"I've been on a lot of soccer teams, and of course everyone says they're your family, but with Cedar Park soccer, it really is," Granada said.

Greg Brown could've gone to just about any prep school in the country, but he chose to stay at Vandegrift because of the connection he felt with his teammates.

The senior received one of the most prestigious high school basketball honors on Friday morning when he officially received his jersey for the McDonald's All-American Game. As soon as he donned the jersey for the first time, he asked all his teammates to join him.

"I would not be here without them," Brown said.

Once the ‘alright, alright, alright’ chants from the group of Austin FC supporters in the back of the tent had simmered down, the celebration could really get going.

Austin FC broke ground on a $242 million, privately-financed stadium on Monday, with club CEO Anthony Precourt, Austin Mayor Steve Adler, MLS Deputy Commissioner Mark Abbott and other club and city officials on hand.

“This is really a vision coming to reality,” Precourt said. “I’ve got chill right now. My heart is pumping. We’ve hit a number of milestones, but there’s no bigger one than a groundbreaking.”

Before the football camps even open, trudging along on the scolding hot asphalt in front of Leander High School, director Robert Selaiden instructs more than 300 kids to march around from dot to dot.

The students aren't playing instruments yet. Some aren't holding them. Even as volunteers on the sideline seem uncomfortable while looking any bit of shade, every member of the Leander Band is smiling.

While they're getting ready for a lot more than just performances on Friday nights and helping to energize the crowds at football games, band students are athletes as much as anyone who straps on a helmet and cleats every Friday night.

"Marching band wouldn't exist if it weren't for football," Selaiden said. "What we do and the involvement of where that comes from totally comes from halftime. It wasn't a competitive thing for a long time, and it all evolved from that. We're constantly trying to find ways to support the football team. That's where everything goes first for us on Friday nights."

Express manager Mickey Storey has an obsession that has nothing to do with baseball.

It started off with his parents getting him one pair of shoes for the school year. He started getting more shoes as he got into high school and the collection continued to grow when he started making money playing baseball and meeting people from different companies.

Next thing he knew, he had more than 400 pairs.

“I don’t view it as an obsession, but others would view it as one,” Storey said. “I can name Jordans off the top of my head and take you through all kinds of colorways. I’ve been to conventions and every time we go to a city with little boutiques, I’ll go through and check it out.”

Cy Sneed is a stereotypical outdoorsman, with a 6-foot-4 frame and thick beard, it’s not hard to envision the Round Rock pitcher sitting on a ridge in the middle of nowhere for hours admiring every single detail.

“You can sit there and see everything that’s in view, but you aren’t really seeing everything,” he said. “There’s so much more than what’s at first glance, and you’re always seeing new stuff.

“There’s so much more than meets the eye.”

The same can be said for the 26-year-old righty, who has been one of the most consistent arms for the Express this season, boasting a 5-6 record and 4.48 ERA with 59 strikeouts over a team-high 70.1 innings pitched.

With a Vista Ridge teammate on each of the wings, Japreece Dean got the ball at the top of the key and sank a game-winning shot to help the Lady Rangers beat Georgetown during the regular season on the way to the state semifinals her senior year.

As a freshman at Texas Tech, she hit three buzzer-beating shots, including a banked-in 3-pointer at the end of the first quarter against TCU.

Flash forward to this year as a starter at UCLA. Dean nailed the game-winning shot off the dribble with 7.9 seconds left to give the Lady Bruins a 61-59 road win over then-No. 16 Arizona State that sparked a phenomenal run at the end of the regular season.

"Typical JP," said Pecos McDaniel, who coached Dean for three years at Vista Ridge.

What started as a trip to experience why and who the leadership of Columbus Crew SC would be leaving behind as they continue to work out a deal to move the team to Austin, ended in the most Columbus way possible.

Columbus midfielder and captain Wil Trapp, who spent four seasons in the Crew Academy, grew up and went to school in nearby Gahanna, Ohio, played in college at Akron and has spent his entire career up to this point with the Crew, launched a 35-yard rocket in stoppage time to give Columbus a 3-2 win.

If that goal isn’t at least nominated for MLS Goal of the Year, I’ll riot.

Brandon Mann literally couldn’t believe what he’d just been told.

After more than 16 professional seasons and 17 teams in two countries in both affiliated and independent baseball, the late-round draft pick that at one point quit the sport altogether to work at a grocery store was about to make his MLB debut at age 33.

“The ultimate goal was to make it to the major leagues,” Mann said. “Not just to make it, but to have an impact. I’ve made it and I still want to make that impact. It’s all just part of the journey and everything I did has led me to where I am.”