The Eastern men’s and women’s swimming teams have gone through intense practices the last two weeks in preparation for the multi-team House of Champions meet in Indianapolis beginning on Friday.

Both squads stayed through Tuesday last week before the Thanksgiving holiday undergoing more stress filled practices than before said head coach Elliott McGill.

“We have been focusing more on what we call ‘race pace,’’’ said McGill. “Although the practices have been shorter, the intensity level has been raised.”

The Panthers have not competed since their home-opening loss on Nov. 19.

The men will compete against the host school IUPUI as well as Evansville, Wisconsin-Green Bay and in-state rival Western Illinois.

The women will face the same competition with an addition of Ball State and Butler.

“I think the Thanksgiving break served the team well,” said McGill. “It was almost like a natural rest for the swimmers. They were able to go back home, relax and just do light workouts in the water.”

The Eastern swimmers have gone through a rough period of time earlier this season dealing with fatigue, but McGill said both squads having time off during Thanksgiving will have their bodies recovered and will be fresher for the three-day long meet.

The House of Champions meet will look different from years before.

The format has been modeled after the conference championship format with two sessions on each day of the meet.

Starting on Friday, the preliminary rounds will begin at 11:30 a.m. local time while all evening sessions will begin at 6 p.m.

The Saturday and Sunday morning sessions will begin at 11 a.m.

The purpose of this meet is to mirror the championship meet as much as possible said head coach of the Jaguars Matt Bos.

The former Eastern coach said it will give all the teams competing the chance to swim in a meet that replicates what they will see in February at the conference meet.

“This is the first time we have done this type of meet in the middle of the season, and we’re hoping that we can grow this into a special event,” Bos said.

The Panthers have much higher expectations than their fifth and seventh place finishes for the men and women a year ago at this meet, McGill said.

“We’re going to compete a lot better than we did last year,” said McGill. “I think we can race at a third or fourth place level for both teams this year, but I know that even if we race at that caliber we can run into faster teams because of the strong competition at this meet.”

The House of Champions will begin on Friday morning and will run through Sunday Dec. 2 at the IUPUI Natatorium.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.