Patrick O’Connor is no newbie when it comes to the sport of swimming.

He picked up the sport at age seven. By the time O’Connor was competing in high school, he became a district champion and an all-state member in the 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle and 400-yard freestyle relay team. During his collegiate years at King’s College, he became the owner of a school record and was named an all-conference swimmer.

O’Connor has also coached at virtually every level of the sport-youth, high school and college-while also serving as the Director of Aquatics at the New Zealand North Harbor Triathlon Club.

Now, O’Connor can add the title of Salisbury swimming head coach to his resume after taking over the program after previous coach Ken Vincent departed. He hasn’t had much time with the team, but he’s eager to get the season underway. After serving as an assistant coach just a few miles down Emmaus Avenue, O’Connor is back on the head coaching circuit.

“I’ve been an assistant coach at Emmaus High School for the past few years, and this job came up through the grapevine and I applied for it,” O’Connor said. “My brother [Tim] is the head coach at Emmaus, so he had a little influence and reputation as a great Lehigh Valley coach.”

O’Connor enters his first season at Salisbury with a large number of last year’s swimmers returning from both sides with eight swimmers and two divers on the boys’ side, along with 14 swimmers and a diver for the girls.

“My goals for the swimmers as individuals are to set personal bests in each event they swim, understand what the key elements to training and racing are, and instill in them the importance of consistency, concentration and execution in both practice and racing,” O’Connor said.

It didn’t take long for O’Connor to notice the exceptional talent on the boys’ front after a number of them competed at last year’s PIAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Bucknell University.

Junior Mahlon Reihman won both the 100- and 200-yard freestyles at districts, along with the 400-yard freestyle relay team a season ago. He competed in that relay team at states and earned gold in the 200-yard freestyle to cement himself at the mountaintop. Diver Tyler Keller placed sixth at states last year to round out the Falcon boy competitors at that level, and fellow diver Daniel Bujcs returns as well.

“As a team, I believe the boys can be a top-three team at districts and possibly a top-six team at states if we continue to improve at the rate I’m seeing,” O’Connor said.

Ben Weiner is back as well after placing sixth in the 100-yard backstroke and 10th in the 200-yard freestyle at districts. Weiner, along with Daniel Bonge (10th in 100-yard butterfly), were also members of Salisbury’s champion relay team at districts. Junior Tim Sechler-Stone returns to the pool as well..

No Falcon girls qualified for states last season, but plenty return after posting solid seasons at the district level. Headlining the way are seniors Kaleigh Bobeck (11th in 100-yard freestyle) and Rachel Costantini (10th in 200-yard freestyle), along with Taylar Velten and Brooke Rogers, both were a part of the 200-yard freestyle relay team that finished fourth at districts a year ago.

“On the girls’ side, I’m seeing the same rate of improvement, but we are young and I’m concentrating more on personal improvement rather than a team expectation,” O’Connor said. “If the individuals work on what they need to do, the team will be much improved.”

Juniors Madaket Chassard and Mackenzie Sikora were both district competitors a year ago, and Sarah Bobeck is one of 13 new swimmers that is already making an impact for the Falcons.

Salisbury travels to Blue Mountain on Thursday for its second meet of the season.