This winter Tim O’Connor enters his 23rd season as the head swimming coach at Emmaus High School. The veteran mentor has seen a lot of success over the years.

Last year’s girls’ team surprised some pundits with a strong season despite having lost some key members and also having fewer numbers than it had in recent seasons.

As for the losses from last year’s team, Mia Baldwin, Keira Gilboy, Gloria Klees, Georgia Magditch, and Izzy Sparaco are all gone, but managed to imprint a winning attitude and a good approach to preparation on younger swimmers while they were at Emmaus.

As for the fewer numbers, like other programs, Emmaus continues to see fewer participants competing, but O’Connor likes what he sees and the strong influence from the Emmaus Aquatic Club that helps to produce quality swimmers has Emmaus coming into the season with a very positive attitude.

“Our girls team, while small last year, really showed some grit and toughness, and we return some kids who earned state-meet experience,” said O’Connor. “Add to that some youth moving up the competitive scale, we could have the makings for a successful season this year.”

Veronica Karboski, Mabry Krause and Sophia Harmon are among the swimmers who had breakout seasons last year and are looked to as leaders for this year’s team. The good news too, is that the three are spread among the classes with Krause being a senior, Harmon, a junior, and Krause a sophomore this season.

Karboski and Krause were both on the 400-yard medley relay team that went to states and finished 15th.

At the district level, Emmaus looks to win its first district championship since the 2018-2019 season and break the stranglehold that rival Parkland has on team gold at districts.

The season opened Monday and Emmaus picked up a comfortable win over East Stroudsburg North by a score of 140-24. Natalie Cheplick got her senior season off to a strong start with wins in the 200-yard Individual Medley and the 100-yard freestyle. In the IM, Cheplick won by nearly 11 seconds over teammate Druthi Reddy and in the freestyle event, she had to squeak out a win over teammate Sriya Reddy, who finished just .10 seconds behind Cheplick’s pace.

Freshman Keilani Silva opened her varsity swimming career with a pair of wins in individual events taking the 100-yard backstroke and 100-butterfly events with comfortable margins.

The Hornets swim in a quad-meet at State College this week before holding coming to their home pool for a dual meet against Allentown Central Catholic next Tuesday.