It does not matter what sport it is – gaining momentum late in the season is always important.

That’s exactly what Eastern swimming is doing right now.

Both the men’s and women’s team had large margin of victories on Saturday against their Mid-Continent Conference opponent Valparaiso at Lantz Natatorium.

The men won 141-75, while women routed the Crusaders 138-94. This marks Eastern’s second victory since winter break.

“The wins are nice, but the momentum is in our swims, not the wins,” said head coach Ray Padovan. “But it’s still nice to have a few wins under our belts.”

The consecutive victories have both team’s excited.

“It feels very good to have this victory because it shows that the training has paid off,” said senior Matt Latham.

Latham, who placed first in the 200-yard freestyle in a time of 1 minute, 50.06 seconds, said it felt particularly good to beat Valparaiso because it is a conference opponent. The men’s team improves to 4-6.

“It’s good to know that we can swim well against them and know that we can beat them later in the year,” he said.

Padovan agreed that winning against Valparaiso was more important than the victory at Millikin on Jan. 12 because they will see the Crusaders at conference.

“That’s the people we need to see more of,” he said. “They are particularly important to us.”

Senior Brittany Wininger had a big day, placing first in the 1000-yard freestyle, the 500-yard freestyle and 400-yard individual medley.

Padovan said he was proud of her performance.

“She was super,” he said. “She probably had the three toughest swims at the meet and all her times were close to being her best. She’s really on track.”

Wininger was modest about her performance and said she felt the women’s team victory was the bigger accomplishment.

“This just prepares us for conference,” she said. “It shows that we have been brought together as a team. Every meet prepared us for conference more and more.”

Wininger said she thought the team performed well in every event.

“I don’t think it’s just one individual performance,” she said. “It was a team effort. There’s no one performance that sticks out in my mind. As a team, everyone did really good.”

Seniors Bill Senese and Marlise Davidson also had strong swims. Senese won the 50-yard freestyle and Davidson won the 100 and 200 free. Senior diver Dave Trabilsy won both the one and three-meter diving competitions.

The team has continued to refer back to their trip to Florida during winter break for training session as an important factor to the rest of the season.

“Florida was a just a turning point,” Wininger said. “Since we trained so hard. Our hard work has paid off.”

The Panthers have two meets left in the season before the conference meet begins on Feb. 15. Their next meet is Thursday at Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis.