Vipers prove to be provincial power

It’s impressive enough to get a medal at swimming provincials, it’s even more impressive when a whole team does.

That is just what the Taber Viper Swim Cub did at summer swimming (ASSA) provincials in Edmonton this past weekend when the club foursome of Danielle Wright, Genna Wright, Renae Saunders and Isabelle Bennett won bronze for the 14-and-under 200-metre free relay.

“I think it’s super tough. For a team to medal at provincials you have to have a lot of fast swimmers coming together. Not many clubs have four fast swimmers that can come together like that. We got pretty lucky this year putting them all together. We wanted them to make provincials, but we didn’t know we would do that well,” said Kaitlyn Kachmarski, head coach of the Taber Viper Swim Club.

“When we got there we were going in as fourth and to get a medal, the third-place team was four seconds ahead.”

“We got pretty pumped up thinking they each had to drop a second and we came together going in there flying. They were doing awesome and dropped six seconds as a team and were only a second off the second and first-place teams. We had an hour to get tour heads together and I think that really helped.”

Adding to the afterglow were only two of the four Vipers swimming in their designated age categories, with Danielle Wright and Renae Saunders getting bumped up an age group as 12 years olds.

“Having two 12 year olds with two 14 year olds achieve that was awesome,” said Kachmarski.

Genna Wright was also able to earn medals individually in her 50-metre butterfly (silver) and 100-metre backstroke (bronze).

“She did really well. She knew she was going in a s atop swimmer in those events, so we knew she had a chance at medaling,” said Kachmarski. “And her and Isabelle Bennett both swam the 50-metre freestyle and the top six were within a couple tenths of a second within the medal placings and so they just missed out. It was super close for them.”

There were 10 Vipers who made the trip to provincials along with Taberite Carrie Ross.

“I think we ended on a really good note to end the season. It was something to applaud about and be proud about. Each swimmer should be very proud of themselves,” said Kachmarski. “all us coaches are really happy with what happened this season.”

Taber Viper Swim Club will be having its year-end awards ceremony on Aug. 29 at 5:30 p.m. at M.D. Park if the weather co-operates. If the weather is poor, the awards ceremony will be pushed to the Taber Police Service basement.