Today begins the two-day House of Champions tournament in Indianapolis for Eastern.

And with the two-day tournament, head coach Ray Padovan is looking for two things:

How well the two-week break from its last meet on Nov. 16 at St. Louis has treated the swimmers and where the teams stand at this point in the season, he said.

Last year, Eastern first competed in the House of Champions tournament and Padovan said the team didn’t perform too well.

“We didn’t swim particularly well,” Padovan said. “Last year it became a high point for several of the teams. Not that we don’t care about this, but we can’t give up that much. It’s not a high point. We’re still focused on the meet in February.”

The Mid-Continent Conference tournament, the final meet of the season, is the February meet Padovan is referring to.

Junior Patty Young also remembers the team’s performance last year at the House of Champions.

“We didn’t do as good as we had expected,” she said. “A lot of the team’s were well rested, but this year we’re going to go in with confidence and I think we’ll do a lot better this year. The team is a lot closer this year.”

The swimmers say they are prepared and ready for the tournament.

“We had a week off, but I think we’re ready for the meet,” said junior Nick Scarpetta. “Thanksgiving break was a break from school, but not from swimming. We continued to swim.”

Padovan is cautious when it comes to evaluating this team’s readiness.

“It’s hard to tell at this point,” he said. “We’ve been gone for a week. Some trained well, some didn’t and there are some that I’m not sure about.”

Padovan says he will probably be able to see soon enough.

“It’ll show down the road,” he said. “When you don’t train so much, it takes longer to get back on track. It really depends on the individual at this particular part in the season. This is where self-motivation becomes the key factor and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

But Padovan says he will find comfort in the fact that the visiting in Indianapolis is to his swimmers and his own liking.

“We like their facility – it’s very nice,” said Padovan about Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis’ pool.

He also doesn’t feel it will affect his team’s performance.

“It’s only two hours away,” Padovan said. “If we can’t swim there, we can’t swim anywhere.”