The Panther Invitational once again belonged to Eastern.

Men and women’s swimming swept the competition at the Panther Invitational this past Saturday.

The women received its first win of the season, winning by 3.5 points over Evansville, while the men won by a large margin and getting over the .500 mark for the first time of the season.

In the four-team meet, the team had 19 first place finishes.

“We did really well, it was really close competition all the way through, and we were really solid in our performances,” Jen Beresheim said. “We had really consistent swimming the whole weekend. The last relay really did phenomenal at the end, and everyone put their effort towards beating the other three teams there.”

Junior diver Joe Laird continued his hot streak, taking both the 1-Meter and 3-Meter events easily. Junior Brent Noble continued his solid effort on the year, winning the 400-IM, and junior Joe Ethington also took the 200-Free (1:48.86). Freshman Matt Scaliatine also had two titles to his name, winning the 100-Breast (1:01.88) and 200-Breast (2:13.94).

“Overall we had a great meet, everyone did their part,” Noble said. “I can’t think of anyone who had a bad meet, everyone raced hard and picked up points for us.”

The men’s team was victorious in four relays, winning the 200-Medley Relay (1:39.93), the 400-Medley Relay (3:38.65), the 200-Free Relay (1:28.73), and the 800-Free Relay (7:18.04).

“I think the relays impacted us a lot, (they) gave us a lot of points,” Scaliatine said. “It gave us a momentum swing in our favor since we won every relay but one, (and) it got us going really well.”

On the women’s side, once again they were lead by Patty Young, finishing first in three events, including the 400-IM (4:51.92), the 100-Breast (1:10.16), and the 200-Breast (2:31.36). Also adding first place finishes were sophomore Laura Nilsen, who won both the 200-IM (2:14.57) and 100-Back (1:01.01) and sophomore Lauren Zillmer, who added a first place win in the 100-Free (54.77).

“Patty won all of her events, she did awesome,” Zillmer said. “Nilsen won three events and got second in her other one. A lot of people helped out with getting random points, (and) everyone did really well this weekend.”

As a team, the women won the 400-Free Relay, the 200-Free Relay and the 200-Medley relay.

“We won three of the five relays, so that helped a lot. Relays score more points than individual events in meets,” Young said. “In the last relay we needed to win because we were up by a (few), and it was really exciting when Zillmer touched before the other team (at the end).”

The Panthers’ next meet is against Western Illinois at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Junior Brent Noble takes a breath while finishing the freestyle segment of the 400 yard individual medley event during the finals of the Panther Invitational meet Saturday in Lantz Natatorium. Noble won the event with a time of 4:20.70. Eric Hiltner/The D

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