The Panther swimmers will finish up their dual meet schedule Saturday, as they take on St. Louis in Padovan Pool, with the meet set to begin at 11:30 a.m.

Panther head coach Matt Bos said the team is having a good week of training and their bodies are beginning to recover from a long season of training.

“Training’s going really well this week,” Bos said. “We’re starting to back off quite a bit now.”

Bos also said a few of the swimmers are starting to feel strange, with their bodies recovering from the last few grueling months, but that it’s normal for this time of the season.

“A few people feel a little bit funny,” Bos said. “It’s normal when you start backing off and the body starts recovering. For the most part, I think people are feeling good.”

The Panthers are also looking forward to a two week stretch without meets between St. Louis and the Summit League Championships Feb. 16-19 in Indianapolis, Ind.

“We’re two weeks away, basically, from the conference meet, so that excitement’s starting to build,” Bos said.

“St. Louis has been a real tough meet for us, we’ve had some really good, close meets with them the last couple of years. We’re really looking forward to getting in and racing some close races and hopefully we’ll see some really good times this weekend.”

Following tomorrow’s meet, the Panthers will continue practicing for two weeks without a meet before their conference championship meet.

“It’ll definitely help. We need it,” Bos said. “This is maybe even a little bit too late in the season for what I’d probably really like, but we’ve kind of done it the past years and it hasn’t really hurt us.”

The meet with St. Louis is not only the Panthers’ last home competition of the season, but it is the final home meet ever in Padovan Pool for the team’s seven exiting seniors.

The seniors will be honored at Saturday’s meet, and Bos said the seniors are starting to feel the end of their collegiate career drawing near.

“It’s a tough meet in a couple ways,” Bos said. “Emotionally it’s a tough meet. It’s a four-year stretch and you can kind of see the end for them as far as their career coming to an end here. I think it gives them a little added incentive to kind of step up and know this is the last time they’re going to compete in this pool.”

Brad Kupiec can be reached at 581-7944 or bmkupiec@eiu.edu