This past weekend, the Panther swimmers followed up their mid-week successes at a modified practice meet with Auburn by taking third place at the Tunica Invitational in Tunica, Miss.

The two-day invite featured the Eastern men’s team finishing second out of four teams and the women ending up fourth out of five, for a final combined place of third.

The meet took place Friday and Saturday and the first day of action was highlighted on the men’s side by senior butterfly swimmer Nathan Moritz, who finished first in the 200-Fly event, finishing with a time of 1:57.75.

The men’s team had one other first place finish on Friday, with the 400-Medley team – consisting of juniors Rich Waszak and Matt O’Hagan, senior Cody Showers, and sophomore Ken Tiltges – combined for a final time of 3:32.52.

Friday also saw sophomore individual medley specialist Mike Lacine and his teammate Tiltges finish second and third, respectively, in the 200 Individual Medley with times of 1:58.67 and 2:00.16. Tiltges also came in third in the 100-Free.

Two other Panthers had second-place finishes in the 100-Breast as O’Hagan and Sophomore Kelli Dicanio both came up just short of victories.

Senior Alyssa Lehman also finished second on Friday, as she came up just short in the 200-Back.

A pair of Panther freestyle relays also finished in second on Friday, as the team of Tiltges, Showers, sophomore butterfly specialist Mike Lehman, and sophomore Colin McGill finished runner-up in the 200-Free relay while the team of Sophomore Joe Ciliak, Waszak, Lehman, and freshman Adam Jones also earned second in the 800 meter version.

Saturday was another busy day for the Panthers, with Waszak leading the charge with a first place finish in the 100 backstroke.

Saturday’s second place individual finishers included Moritz in the 100-Fly and Alyssa Lehman in the 100-Back.

Ciliak and Dicanio both finish third on Saturday in their respective 200-Back races.

Saturday was also a good day for the Panther relays, as Waszak, O’Hagan, Showers and Tiltges combined to take the 200-Medley relay before Tiltges, Showers, Waszak and Ciliak came within less than a second of winning the 400 freestyle relay.

On the women’s side, the team of Lehman, junior freestyler Morgan Roberts, Dicanio, and freshman Mary Lacine combined to capture third in their own 400 freestyle relay.

The men came in second to Missouri State while topping Delta State and Rhodes College while the women beat Rhodes College while coming just behind Arkansas-Little Rock in third as Missouri State and Delta State finished first and second, respectively.

Overall, MSU came in first, with 2184.50 overall points while Eastern came in third with 1291. The Panthers next action will be a dual meet in Macomb against cross-state rival Western Illinois on Jan. 15.

Brad Kupiec can be contacted at 581-7944 of bmkupiec@eiu.edu.

Chacour Koop, a sophomore, swims in the men’s 500-yard freestyle Oct. 24, 2010 at Padovan Pool in a meet against Ball State. (Danny Damiani

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