Something rare happened on last Friday’s swim meet between Eastern and Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis. The most exciting event of the meet for the men was the first.

During the 200-yard medley relay, the men’s swimming team was behind in the race entering the final lap.

But freshman Matt Crittenden, swimming the final lap for Eastern, showed explosiveness as he helped the Panthers claim a come-from-behind victory. Eastern won with a time of one minute, 41.99 seconds and Crittenden finished his own leg of the race in twenty-one seconds. IUPUI led by one-tenth of a second heading into Crittenden’s leg.

“I was just thinking ‘I have to catch up and not let them catch up to me,'” Crittenden said.

Crittenden was a bit shocked about Eastern’s performance in the 200-yard medley relay.

“We weren’t expecting to win that event,” he said.

Women swimmers also found the event to be exciting.

“The men’s 200-yard medley was exciting,” freshman Lauren Zillmer said. “It was really close.”

This also marked the first meet win for both men and women’s swimming teams of the season. The men won 166-122 and the women won 200-89 in both team’s first Mid-Continent Conference win also.

The Panthers see this win as the first part of a bigger picture.

“This is a big win; I think we’ll win out the rest of the year,” senior Joe Wyckoff said. “Running the table for the conference is possible.”

Crittenden agrees.

“This win helps us out a lot,” Crittenden said. “We started out with three losses. This is a good turning point.”

The win pumped up some of the swimmers, but head coach Ray Padovan did not see the win as a turning point in the overall course of the season.

“It’s not that big,” Padovan said. “It’s early. It’s going to be a lot closer next time we meet.”

IUPUI came into Friday’s meet without its diving team, and they will return to Eastern for the Panther Invitational on Nov. 3.

“They are actually ranked higher than us,” Wyckoff said. “This win was basically an upset, even though the didn’t bring their divers.”

IUPUI has a diving team but did not bring any divers to this meet. This gave Eastern 16 automatic points, with the Panthers taking first through third in both the men and women’s diving events.

While not overly thrilled by the team’s victories, Padovan was proud of his teams and their performance.

“The team swam pretty well,” he said. “We had a few people coming around.”

The Panthers’ next meet will be Saturday at Evansville.