It looked like the senior prom was being held in Lantz Natatorium. The bleachers were packed, and the walls around the school were decked with streamers, balloons and signs commemorating the seniors for the last home meet of their careers. But, the good time ended when the Saint Louis University Billikens crashed the party.

The men were defeated 134-108, and the women lost 149-92. Despite the scores, head coach Ray Padovan is not disappointed in his team.

“I don’t have any problems with the meet,” he said. “They swam well, but we didn’t do a bad job. I was not unhappy with our performance.”

The Panthers had a good amount of first place finishes, but SLU gobbled up the points by getting to the podium more in second, third, and fourth. These types of results exposed the lack of depth of the Panthers.

“They were a lot deeper than us, especially the women,” Padovan said. “I thought that we could be a little closer with the men, but they swam above what we thought they could do.”

Bill Senese shined for the Panther men, capturing two first-place finishes in the 50-meter freestyle and 200-meter backstroke.

“My 200 backstroke time was faster than in the last few weeks,” Senese said. “I thought my 50 freestyle time was right about average for me.”

Padovan was impressed with Senese’s consistent performance.

“Bill is just solid all the time,” he said. “He is so talented and has done a great job for us all year.”

No Eastern woman took more than one first place finish, but Claire Garvey swam her way to three podium finishes. She took first in the 1000-yard freestyle and second in both the 500-yard freestyle and 200 individual medley.

This meet was not only the Panthers’ last home meet, but it was the last meet of the season before the Mid-Continent Conference tournament. The Eastern swimmers used this meet as a tune-up in the pool, and the divers used this meet as one last chance to show a dive officially. Even though the Eastern male divers swept both the 1-meter and 3-meter events, they were also experimenting with dives before conference. Dave Trabilsy discussed one particular attempt he had that did not score very well.

“[The dive] looked good when I threw it all through practice,” he said. “I guess I was just getting tired by that 6th dive. I have never thrown it in a meet, and I wanted to get some meet experience with it before conference.”

On Feb. 16, the Panthers make the trip to IUPUI, the site of the Mid-Continent Conference tournament, and close out their season.