THE HEART OF CHAMPIONS

By David Holm, Director of Athletics and Physical Education

It’s a great day to be a Falcon! And, it certainly was a great fall season to be a Falcon as so many of our teams and student-athletes had memorable events and experiences.

Coming off of our summer workouts, our Falcons hit the ground running and never looked back. Upper School pre-season sports started the first of August and several weeks later were joined by our Middle School teams. This was a fall that would see athletic competitions not only throughout the state of Texas, but nationally in the great cities of New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis. It was a season of skill development, personal bests, strong conference showings, and SPC Championship competitions.

After exciting and hard fought seasons, our fall varsity athletes represented Kinkaid brilliantly at the Fall SPC Championships here in Houston and turned in impressive final stats and SPC rankings. On a beautiful clear and crisp morning, our Boys and Girls Cross-Country teams ran fast over the course at Spring Creek in Tomball, TX. The Boys finished in sixth place and had six runners record “personal bests” that morning. After a strong performance midway through the season at the Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Girls Cross-Country team finished sixth in the SPC and saw nine runners hit “personal bests” at the Championship Meet. Our Girls Volleyball team played hard throughout the tournament and finished in eighth place. The Boys Volleyball team played well throughout the year and finished the season with a 3-0 sweep over St. John’s to secure fifth place.

The 2022 Cheer team showed incredible skill and power, particularly during Homecoming week and at Rice Stadium hyping up our Falcon fans. Following a great performance at our SPC football championship game, the team headed to Galveston to compete in the Public/Private Large School competition. Competing with over 30 teams, Kinkaid finished fifteenth overall, and finished in first place for private schools. Our nationally ranked Field Hockey team competed at the MaxPreps Field Hockey Invitational in Philadelphia going 3-0 against some of the nation’s best teams and finished second in the SPC Tournament. The Kinkaid Falcon Football team battled throughout the season playing a tough non-conference schedule including a trip to New Orleans to face Archbishop Shaw. The “never-give-up” Falcons culminated their incredible season as the SPC 4A Football Champions.

Our Junior Varsity (JV) athletes put in an extraordinary amount of time and energy to their success this fall season. JV Cheer competed this fall and performed at Rice and the SPC championship game and brought precision and spirit to their performances. JV Football has had two unprecedented years going 20-0-1 in the last 21 games. Look out for the future of Falcon Football! We competed four JV Volleyball teams between the girls and the boys, building a solid foundation to continue to build these two programs. JV Field Hockey made the semi finals of the JV city tournament, and we are excited about continuing field hockey domination.

Our Middle School student-athletes, too, competed with integrity and passion this season. Our cross country teams had outstanding personal records throughout the season and placed six runners in the top 20 at the final HJPC. The boys placed 3rd and Maya Bernal ’27 placed 2nd overall in the girls division. Eighth grade football competed with passion for the HJPC Championship but came up a bit short, placing 2nd. Our volleyball teams grew tremendously through the season with several of our seventh grade athletes going on 14 run serve streaks. Eighth grade field hockey won some epic overtime battles, and seventh grade field hockey went undefeated this year.

With the fall season in the books, the winter season is just getting started. Our teams are showing they continue to be up to the challenge with basketball, soccer, swimming, and wrestling off to a strong start.

Every day is a great day to be a Falcon!