The Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis men’s swimming roster will look different to Eastern’s swimming teams. The Jaguars men’s swimming team added two newcomers to their team since the last time they faced Eastern.

Sophomores Tyler McGowan and Matt Levenhagen return for IUPUI after McGowan sat out the fall semester and Levenhagen had an injury.

Eastern’s men and women’s swimming teams will compete against IUPUI at noon on Saturday at Lantz Natatorium.

Both made an immediate difference. McGowan set the school record in the 100-yard butterfly (1 minute 54.94 seconds) and Levenhagen placed third in the 200-breaststroke in 2:16.26.

“The men’s team has much improved from the beginning of the year,” Eastern head coach Ray Padovan said. “They added some new people in the middle of the year. From the times that I’ve seen from them, we need to keep it close. They have one key person and then they have some other people that swim well, too.”

In order to counter IUPUI’s top swimmers, Eastern’s men’s team will need to swim their best times in order keep close to them and to have a chance in the difficult events. This is where freshman Matt Scaliatine in breaststroke and senior captain Tim O’Hagan in butterfly come into play.

“On the men’s side, we’ll need to adjust around,” Padovan said. “(Junior Brent) Noble may have to swim in the distance events as he has in the past, and Scaliatine will have to help out in breaststroke. We’ll need some good races. Hopefully our depth will take care of us in the meet.”

The men’s team defeated IUPUI 169-129 on Oct. 5 and the women’s team lost by four points, 151-147, to the Jaguars on Oct 5.

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