The important thing for the Panthers was it had a meet for the first time in more than a month. It also helped to the fact that both Eastern’s men’s and women’s team routed Millikin by scores of 120-68 and 117-65.

Head coach Ray Padovan, though happy with the win, said he didn’t feel that win meant that much.

“No, I don’t think this win against Millikin is all that significant,” he said. “Yeah, it’s nice to win, but we’ve had meets where we’ve had the tar beat out of us, but I still think we performed pretty well.”

The Panthers placed first in every individual and team event. Padovan was proud of his teams and praised the performances of some of his swimmers.

“Several swimmers had a good meet,” he said. “Tim O’Hagan had a real good meet. Freshman Lauren Nilson, who has been injured, came out and swam real well. Kristen Rutkowski also had a real good swim.”

Rutkowski, a freshman, swam her best swim at collegiate level. She explained how it felt to win the 1000 yard freestyle race.

“It felt good,” she said. “I felt really strong after the Florida trip.”

Junior Tim O’Hagan finished first in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 53.77 seconds.

“It felt really good because I hadn’t won that event all year,” O’Hagan said. “On the flip side though, it didn’t feel good because Millikin isn’t a strong team and there wasn’t really anyone to race.”

O’Hagan said even though Millikin was not a strong team that the win was still important.

“We knew from the beginning that Millikin wasn’t very good,” he said. “But we all looked forward to the meet because we hadn’t had a meet in a month.”

Defeating Millikin gave many of the swimmers a good feeling.

“It really gave us a positive attitude,” Rutkowski said.

O’Hagan said he thought the win was beneficial.

“It does boost our confidence,” he said. “A lot of the guys swam real well. We worked hard during the break. It got us excited for the rest of the season.”

Rutkowski insisted that the team wasn’t overconfident going into the meet.

“Before we felt strong, but we weren’t going to get cocky,” she said. “We just went in and hoped for the best.”

The win improved the men to a 3-5 and the women to 2-6.

Padovan insists that overall win-lose records are not all that important.

“(Their records are) not really that important,” he said. “Obviously, we would like to win every meet. But the real key is what we do in the end and I don’t mean that in terms of conference. If everyone swims at their best and perform at their best level, that’s what matters.”

But Padovan still felt the team benefited from the victory.

“Millikin wasn’t a real strong team,” he said. “Mainly it gave us a good chance to see some competition and that is something we haven’t had in awhile. We got some good swims out of it and it gets us back on track.”