As Caney Creek gets bigger and gains more students, the athletics teams change as well. 

CCHS is going up to 6A from 5A due to the increase in student enrollment. With the uptick in students, the school’s opponents are set to change, meaning they would have to face other 6A schools.

“We want to be as competitive as we possibly can,” Athletic Director and football coach Kendall Hineman said. “Making sure that we handle ourselves with nice pride just basically doing the Caney Creek thing, and making sure we put ourselves on the mat.”

The schools in our athletics district will now be Conroe, Grand Oaks, Woodlands, Willis, Oak Ridge, College Park, New Caney and Cleveland. Cleveland and New Caney are some of the schools that Caney Creek has had to compete against before. 

“We’re very close to all the other schools that are there,” Hineman said. “It’s going to cut down on travel, and we’ll be able to [go to places quicker]. I think we’ll be able to travel to more games or for fans going to away games.”

Since Caney Creek is moving higher up, that means more students might join more sports teams to show school spirit, or just compete.

“Numbers are going up but it’s very slow,” volleyball coach Heidi Otto said. “Slow and steady, but slow and steady wins the race.”

Volleyball has decided to maintain their original strategy even if they are going to go up against bigger schools.

“We are doing the same thing, so there’s definitely more intensity because it’s a bigger, tougher district,” Otto said. “I think for us, we’re focusing a lot on the mental part of the game this offseason and playing as a team.”

Not only has basketball, football, and volleyball faced complications, but CCHS’s softball team has also stated that the competition would make it a lot harder for them to win.

“They’ve been succeeding against 6A schools for a lot longer than us,” softball coach Taylor Perrault said. “It’ll make it a lot tougher on us, but we’re going to step up and compete.”