Swimming
Favorite athlete: Rowdy Gaines
Favorite team: Navy Women’s Swim and Dive
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the 2022 PIAA State Championship with my teammates.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: At 8 years old, I vomited in the pool at a meet. The meet was subsequently cancelled.
Music on my playlist: KPop, Reggaeton, Classical
Future plans: To continue my studies and swim at the United States Naval Academy.
Words to live by: “Have you earned the right?”
One goal before turning 30: To learn a new language.
One thing people don’t know about me: I can juggle!
By Ed Morrone
It’s true, what they say, that banners fly forever.
At some point inside Hatboro-Horsham High School, that will be the case for the 2021-22 girls swim team, winner of the 2022 PIAA 3A state championship. But what those banners fail to mention is all of the time and effort that went into the quest for gold, which started way before this past November.
In some ways, it started all the way back when Vivi Vergara was 6 years old, when she first began competitive swimming for the Hatboro-Horsham Aquatic Association (HHAA). As founder of HHAA, George “Kip” Emig — who would later serve as Vergara’s varsity swim coach at the high school level — was there, and before long, future Hatter senior teammates like Hannah Parker and Sara Bozzomo were too. They couldn’t have known it at the time, but those early swims at HHAA served as laying a foundation for things to come.
The swim team began becoming a family more than a decade ago, and along the way, new members such as Annie and Kathy Jia, Sarah Parker (Hannah’s sister) and Emmy Erikson joined an already tight-knit unit. So, yes, while the state championship the Hatters won less than two weeks ago was the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae, what really will have the most long-lasting impact on this team is the bonds that were molded and welded along the way, ones that carry much more weight than a gold medal around the neck.
“What I’ll hold most dear to my heart is the relationships formed and the friends made,” said Vergara, the Hatters’ outspoken leader who never stops pumping her teammates up in conversation. “What’s really cool to me is that we are all very different, individual people who became these incredible friends. The bonds you make, that’s what’s going to be most difficult being away from in the future, because those are the most important things that you take with you when you leave.”
The fact that Vergara and her teammates won the swim program’s first state championship — and first of any state title for any athletic program at the school in quite a while — makes it all just a little bit sweeter.
And, by all accounts, Vergara is the super glue, the adhesive that holds this entire thing together. While many high school student-athletes are described by coaches as quiet, introverted leaders who lead by example, Vergara represents something of an inverse case. Of course, she still leads through example and action (Emig said Vergara is one of the hardest workers he has ever coached in more than three-plus decades in the sport), but on top of that, she is never shy in using her voice, especially when it comes to convincing her teammates that every single one of them has what it takes to become a state champion.
“This is a group of kids who grew up in Hatboro and have always been a part of the tight-knit swim community,” Emig said. “With Vivi, it’s the same formula as any successful athlete: she works hard. She’s a workhorse in practice, in dry land workouts, weight training, nutrition…she is huge on all of that, and vocally tells the other girls that it’s the key to getting better.
“She’s so locked into the sport that she just works and works and works. The entire team was candy, soda and junk food-free for the final five weeks of the season this year. Everybody was so locked in this year, and I really believe it was because of Vivi. She is very intelligent and willing to use her voice to put it all out there. Her sense of discipline, drive and desire, it never stops.”
In addition to HHAA, Vergara also honed her skills from the time she was 9 years old as a member of the Central Bucks Swim Team. So, by the time she arrived at Hatboro as a freshman, Vergara was already a seasoned veteran. She was also a soccer player up until her freshman year, so it hasn’t always been all swimming all the time; Vergara even tried her hand at dance and volleyball, but by her own admission, swimming is the only sport that managed to stick.
This March wasn’t Vergara’s first trip to states; actually, it was her fourth, and not her first medal either, as she claimed fifth place in the 200 freestyle her sophomore year. Vergara is mostly a “sprint swimmer,” meaning she often swims the shorter races and not their distance counterparts. She has some experience swimming butterfly, but primarily she has been a member of individual freestyle and relay races.
“I’ve never really been a super technical swimmer,” Vergara said when asked to describe her style in the pool. “I’ve never had the best technique, the longest stroke or the best underwater fly kicks. For me, it’s hard work first and foremost, just putting a lot of effort into the sets I’m doing. Another thing that has given me an advantage is power. CrossFit has been an important part of my development as an athlete because you develop power through lifting and movement. It gave me an edge on the sprinting side, because these movements help me explode in the water.”
By freshman standards, Vergara had a strong inaugural campaign for the Hatters, but she was decidedly dissatisfied with getting to states and not placing. Sophomore year the state meet was never completed due to the COVID-19 shutdown, and junior year saw the PIAA invite less swimmers to compete than is typical due to the pandemic.
So, everything ended up building to one final opportunity. Entering senior year, the process of getting to states remained the same, yet Vergara admitted that knowing this would be the last opportunity for her and her senior teammates gave the season an entirely different feel.
“This season did feel different, even if we had a good idea of what we’d be able to do,” Vergara said. “It was sentimental, especially for the seniors: me, Hannah and Sara. I’m not a super sentimental person in general, but this was a really nice culmination of things. It felt like something we had worked toward for the entirety of our swimming careers. It was incredible to do it with my best friends, and just very emotional for everyone, including our coaches. Kip started the program that we started swimming at and has been running that program and the high school one for years. Swimmers and coaches got to see a reward, a materialization of all of our efforts. Just a very special moment for everyone.”
The state meet is held over two days. On day one, the 200 medley relay team consisting of Erikson, the Jia sisters and Sarah Parker captured Hatboro’s first gold medal. Later in the day, Vergara joined Kathy Jia, Sarah and Hannah Parker as the 200 freestyle relay team’s anchor, meaning she swam the last leg of the race. Vergara swam it in 23.22 seconds, with a total team time of 1:33.22, good for gold and a full second better than the runner-up.
“I was very hyped up, focused and locked in when it was my time to swim,” Vergara recalled. “We were already in a good place, but I wasn’t going to let up. I swam my race like I was being chased by sharks in the water. I just went for it. When it was my turn, there was no way I was going to let my team down.”
On day two, with the team title already assured for the Hatters, the state meet culminated with the 400 freestyle relay, consisting of Vergara, Bozzomo, Sarah Parker and Annie Jia. There were also individual events happening for Hatboro swimmers, but most of the heavy lifting was done in relays. Only this time in the 400, a last-minute change was made: instead of Parker leading off and Vergara going third, their slots were switched. Emig specifically credited Vergara with this idea, saying she noticed some subtle nuances that would benefit the team if she led off.
“When you switch the order between the prelims and finals, as a coach that’s a scary situation,” Emig admitted. “You practice every piece of this over and over, so to switch it then is a bit of a gamble. But when a kid comes to you and says something like that, I had to listen because of how locked in Vivi was. She knew what she wanted. For her to ask to go first, that’s just the maturity and leadership that’s brought us success."
So, how'd the strategy end up working?
"We won the race by three seconds, which is pretty amazing," Emig said.
Vergara made the observation that Parker would perform better later in the relay because she’s more adept at passing people mid-race, while Vergara could use her power and sprinting speed to get the team off to a faster start.
“We were very nervous when we made that change,” Vergara admitted. “But we knew we would be able to finish it off and be champions. Sweeping all of the relay races was the cherry on top of our cake. Everybody did their part, and at that point, we weren’t going to lose. We all performed so well, and it was an awesome way to end a great meet.”
Now that high school swimming is behind her with multiple gold medals in tow, Vergara shifts her attention to the next big challenge, and it’s a doozy: once she finishes up at Hatboro, she will be on her way to Annapolis, Maryland, to swim for the United States Naval Academy. It’s always a fascinating case study in deciphering the how’s and why’s of a student-athlete ending up at a service academy. Some kids come from military families and have the natural urge to serve, while for others, it almost happens as a happy accident.
Vergara would likely fall between the two camps. Her maternal grandfather was “a big Army guy,” and Vergara’s father fulfilled mandatory military service in his native Paraguay before coming to America. But neither her father or grandfather, or anyone for that matter, was pressuring Vergara to follow some military predestination. It wasn’t exactly a random occurrence either, at least not if you know Vergara or spend some time talking to her.
Part of the draw of swimming is the intense discipline, structure and equal parts mental and physical aptitude that the sport requires. When considering how faithful Vergara is to her training regiment, how serious she is about her studies and how important being a leader in her school community is to her, then she seems like a natural fit for a school like Navy that will demand a lot from its student-athletes. At this point, the highest expectations she has come from Vergara herself, so there’s nothing Navy could ask of her that she hasn’t already demanded of herself.
“I knew I wanted to swim in college ,and I’ve always been a very academic person, so I knew I wanted to go to a prestigious school,” Vergara said. “I hadn’t thought much about a service academy, but I had a club teammate who went to West Point, so I learned a little. I also have family in Annapolis, so I contacted the coach and got to learn about the school’s leadership, integrity and the amazing opportunities available.”
Sure, it would be a challenging environment, but also an incredibly rewarding payoff in the end.
“I became so fascinated by all of it,” Vergara said. “This is the place I wanted to be. It’s a challenging environment, but one I saw myself succeeding in. The school is very regimented and value-based.”
Vergara has always been fascinated by history and said that an internship at a law office helped steer her toward a career working for the government. She wants a “more active” job than a lawyer, though. Luckily for her, Navy has many options to explore, including aviation, submarine warfare, nuclear warfare and the medical corps, just to name a few. Vergara doesn’t see herself on a submarine, but whatever she does pick, she hopes to finish her credits early so that she could pursue a one-year Master’s program in Intelligence so that she could apply that to her future career as an officer.
By Vergara’s count, she’s racked up 13 advanced placement courses at Hatboro, and she is also involved in leadership for multiple clubs at the school: Future Business Leaders of America, National Honors Society and student council are chief among them. She’s also really into art, wants to learn a new language and is a good juggler (both literally and figuratively). It’s been a remarkably accomplished – and busy - high school experience, and Vergara wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just as long as you know that she’s not doing all of this just to benefit herself.
“A lot of people lead by example, and I try to do that too,” she said. “I try to do that, as well as give the utmost effort: in the pool, CrossFit, whatever it is, so that I can help inspire others to do the same. I think it sets me apart, because I’m not afraid to use my voice and tell the truth. It’s very difficult to talk about the specifics of what you do as a leader — I just saw there was a need for someone to step up and fill that space of bringing people closer together. That’s just something that I’ve always tried really hard to do.”
Vergara did so quite well, and sooner rather than later there will be a state champion banner to prove it.
