Friday and Saturday’s meets saw Eastern’s men’s and women’s swim teams notch sweeps against Western Illinois and Millikin in the Ray Padovan Pool.

“Both were really good,” head coach Matt Bos said. “Obviously, to beat one of our bigger rivals in Western is always nice. We won the meet pretty convincingly, which is pretty good. We really swam well. Things are starting to come along. We are happy with the performances of the meet and some of the times we saw.”

The Panthers women’s squad (3-3, 1-0 in the Summit League) beat the Leathernecks 169-85, while the men (4-2, 1-0 Summit League) splashed to a 166-90 result. Overall, Eastern won 24 of 28 events.

“Everybody likes beating Western, so we were excited doing that,” freshman swimmer Michael Bower said.

Sofia Pappanastos, a junior swimmer, was happy for her team’s showing against Western.

“Especially for the girls’ team because we lost to them last year, it was a big confidence boost for everyone and everyone on the girl’s team came together,” Pappanastos said.

In Saturday’s meet, Eastern launched passed Millikin with the men (107-59) and women (105-66) having dominant performances.

Pappanastos said against Millikin, Bos had the swimmers race in different events as a change of pace and to keep them loose.

“Some people were in different events and probably relaxed them a little because that isn’t something you normally do,” Pappanastos said.

Bos said competing against the smaller Big Blue crew provided a good opportunity to try racing in new events, especially for sprint and distance freestyle swimmers.

“Some people swam in events they don’t usually swim and other people were trying to figure out what our last event will be for our championship meet,” Bos said. “So it was nice to pick up a win, but it was a little change of pace for us.”

Occasionally, swimmers who race well in a different event can expand their racing repertoire, Bos said.

“It’s sometimes hard to get people into different events because a lot of the meets you are swimming, based off the competition, you are trying to put up your best lineup to win the meet,” Bos said. “We had a little leeway with Millikin, so we had them do some backstroke or butterfly.”

Eastern will continue its season at 11 a.m. Sunday in Fishers, Ind.,where the men will face off against Valparaiso and Ball State.

Also Sunday, the Panther women will compete against Valparaiso, Ball State, Butler and Youngstown State.

Bob Bajek can be reached at 581-7944 or rtbajek@eiu.edu.

Rich Waszak takes first place in the men’s 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:58.01 Friday night against Western Illinois. (Danny Damiani/The Daily Eastern News)

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