Estevan native Taeghan Hack has had a great start to her college water polo career in West Virginia. The freshman helped the Salem University Tigers clinch their first ever birth in the NCAA women's water polo championships over the weekend, and she was an intergral part of the effort to get her team that far in a nailbiting qualifying matchup where they pulled ahead of Mercyhurst University late and then started to pour on the offence even more.

"When we pulled ahead and it was just overall an amazing feeling looking up at the clock out in the water and there was only a minute and 30 seconds around and I think we were up by four at this point, and I knew at that point we had qualified and I looked over at my captain and I just gave her the biggest smile ever as I had just given her the last goal and that we had made the tournament. I got the assist on that one and she scored and I was just super excited to know that we were booking our ticket to California soon."

This year's championships are to be hosted at the University of California: Los Angeles, a post secondary school that has more kids in their athletics programs than the entire city of Salem. Not only that, but most of the high profile water polo schools in the U.S. are in the western part of the province, so a team like Hack's Salem Tigers making it all the way to the national championships is a huge point of pride, especially since at the start of the year their team was not practicing together as a unit and instead in two seperate halves due to the restrictions in place at the time.

"We went into our first tournament still practicing with the team split in two and you didn't really get to train with the other pod, and so you didn't really know how they passed, how we all work together, and you can really see that we learned after that. We really grew together and it was just really amazing seeing the family that we had at the start of the year become as we would call it one whole 'meatball'. What we had here just become altogether and just work really well."

Hack herself is happy with how she has played in her first year. Not only did she have a key assist that has sent her team to the NCAA championships, but she feels that she has continued to get better and better throughout the year and is looking to be a leader on the team moving forward.

"It's probably one of the best feelings, especially as I'm a freshman here and I really showed in the conference and overall throughout this year what I can do as a Canadian player coming from small town Estevan, showing exactly who I am, what I can do, and what I'm capable of. So it's really amazing to give my entire all for this entire tournament and win it all. It was the best feeling ever."

Hack continued, "That entire weekend we were there, it's super stressful, just not knowing if we are going to go to California and then once that last buzzer went off the feeling of just really feeling so happy and so proud for your team. It's something words can't describe."

The NCAA Women's Water Polo Championships are set for May 14-16.