Eastern men’s swimmer Bill Senese broke one of his own school records at the House of Champions tournament in Indianapolis this past weekend.

He broke the 50-yard freestyle record with the time of 20.69 seconds, a record he previously held with a time of 20.75 seconds.

“He’s just been swimming right on,” head coach Ray Padovan said. “This has been a really good meet for him, he did pretty well there last year.”

Senior Marlise Davidson said she wasn’t surprised by Senese’s performance.

“Bill is doing very well,” she said. “I think he’ll break the record again come conference time. It’s not really that surprising.”

But Padovan mentioned that he thought all of his swimmers did well in the 50-yard freestyle.

“Everyone did a real good job,” he said. “Matt Crittenden did a great job. By far that was his lifetime best.”

Senese was also impressed by Crittenden’s performance. Crittenden finished fourth with a time of 21.44.

“Matt Crittenden had his best meet of the year,” Senese said. “He did very well.”

The Panther’s men ended up placing third out of five teams with 580.5 points, while the women finished fourth out of six teams with 420 points.

Padovan said he had mixed feelings on his team’s performance in the meet.

“We had some exceptional swims and we had a few bad ones as well,” he said. “A lot of that had to do with what (the swimmers) did over their break.”

Ball State won both in men’s and women’s competition. The Cardinals women scored 976 points and the men’s team scored 938.5 points.

Padovan acknowledged their performance.

“They did very well,” he said. “We knew the women’s team was very good, but the men did a great job and really improved.”

Davidson said she enjoyed competing against Ball State.

“The competition was really tough,” she said. “Just the atmosphere of the meet. It’s nice to have that kind of competition.”

The meet wasn’t without a bit of controversy. Eastern’s men team was disqualified in the 800-yard freestyle relay for having a swimmer jump early, which cost the Panthers 40 points.

Padovan said it didn’t affect the outcome of the meet.

“We still would have been out by seven points short of defeating Western,” he said.

Western placed second in the men’s competition with a total of 628 points.

Padovan wasn’t too upset over the call.

“You just accept it,” he said. “You can’t change the call. Once the official makes the call, then that’s it.”

That didn’t mean he didn’t agree with the call.

“Well, there was two coaches standing next to me and none of us saw the call, but that’s how it goes sometimes,” Padovan said.

Some of the swimmers were not as complacent with the call.

“We ended up losing to Western by more than 40 points, but if we had got some points there, it may have changed the outcome,” Senese said. “Had we had been looking at the scoreboard down by four points, it might have pumped up the guys.”