After the Eastern men’s swim team defeated former Summit League rival Valparaiso 113-92 Saturday, the Panthers now prepare for a conference rival.

The Panthers will compete against Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis at noon Saturday in Lantz Natatorium.

“Practice will be about the same this week,” freshman Matt Scaliatine said. “We’ll be doing some split-200’s, a few dive-sets and some drop-offs in practice. The game plan is having a good practice this week, and we need to take the meet this week at home against IUPUI. We could get above .500.”

The men’s team is 4-4 in dual meets this season.

“We’ll have a normal practice schedule,” said Eastern head swimming coach Ray Padovan. “It’ll be a little more motivated type because of the competition. We’re trying to get into the tail end of our hard training. We’ve had several people show signs of life again, but we need to go faster without slowing down.”

The Panthers want to solidify themselves before they head to the conference meet Feb. 21.

“The game plan (revolves around) Ray’s hard practices,” senior Matt Latham said. “We need to focus on the events that we’re strong in. We need to focus on distance events because that’s where we don’t have as much depth as IUPUI does.”

The IUPUI men’s team is 2-8 this season.

“I haven’t seen anything on IUPUI in so long. They were deeper than us in the women in the past, but one of their real strong points is diving,” Padovan said. “It is because of their separate diving coach that they may not dive this week. I anticipate a very close meet both ways.”

Arthur steps up

Freshman Caleb Arthur has stepped up. Arthur won the 100-yard freestyle (48.83 seconds) this past weekend at Valparaiso.

“When he swims, he pops his head just like a prairie dog,” Padovan joked. “He has really come along well, and he gets a bit better all of the time, which was something we were hoping from newer people coming in.”

Teammate Latham agreed that Artur has made progress.

“Initially, we believed Caleb to be a 50 to 100-yard freestyler,” Latham said. “He’s helped step up in the 200-yard events. We will be facing teams that have strong stroker, so we’ll be stronger in events.”

Scaliatine said Arthur has worked hard.

“Caleb has worked his butt off at practice,” Scaliatine said. “We can throw him in any event and he does real well in the freestyle events, but I think it comes from how hard that he works in practice.”

Ethington, others improve

In the past few weeks, Arthur was a part of the charge to conference, but there were other unsung heroes, as well.

Junior Joe Ethington won the 200-yard freestyle (1:48.71) against Valparaiso.

If Ethington has the time like he did in the meet against Western Illinois (1:47.03), it would be a great help to the team to win another easy event.

Junior Thomas Showers has, in the past few weeks, stepped up in the medley relays against Millikin in the 200-yard medley relay (1:44.14) and in the meet against Valparaiso in the 400-yard medley relay (3:40.51).

Showers won the 200-yard backstroke (2:02.46), and could be a valuable asset to the team’s charge into the conference meet.

“Both (Showers and Ethington’s performances) have been exceedingly well,” Latham said. “Ethington has been strong in the freestyle while Showers has been strong in the backstroke. The only place they can go from here is to getting faster.”

Also in the medley relay from last weekend were senior Tim O’Hagan, Scaliatine and Latham.

O’Hagan’s butterfly allows the team to get an advantage over the competition.

“Throughout the year it has been Tim O’Hagan who has stepped up,” Scaliatine said. “He gives us a chance and the lead in butterfly. It gives us a good start to the medley relay.”

Ross Meister can be reached at 581-7944 or at rwmeister@eiu.edu.