Eastern swimming has reached the midway point of its season with the men’s and women’s teams having their share of success in 2013.

The 2014 portion of the schedule has left the team with plenty of opportunities to improve upon their first half success.

Although the men start 2014 at 0-5 and the women at 1-5, the Panthers have shown that they can compete in many events.

Eastern coach Elliot McGill was more than pleased with Eastern’s performance in the 2013 portion of the season. Although the Panthers are a young team, that did not stop them from competing at high levels against very good competition, McGill said.

“Looking back on the first half of the year, I have to say I’ve been very pleased so far,” McGill said. “We were such a young team going up against some very strong, veteran programs and we competed fairly well.”

During the course of the season, a couple of seniors have led the men’s team.

Senior Colin McGill has the best times in the 100-yard freestyle at 47.56 seconds and the 100-yard backstroke at 51.79 seconds.

With the top time 2:14.18 in the 200-yard breaststroke is senior Josh Miller.

Sophomore Conner Conroy swam the three fastest times for the men in the 250-yard freestyle (2:20.43), 100-yard butterfly (53.43), and 200-yard butterfly, (1:57.03) respectively.

Another sophomore, Dylan Ferguson also holds three top times for the men. Ferguson had the best times in the 100-yard individual medley (56.09), 200-yard individual medley (2:00.20) and the 400-yard individual medley, (4:18.4) respectively.

Also for the men, freshman Harris Thompson holds four top times in the 200-yard freestyle (1:45.03), 500-yard freestyle (4:41.01), 1000-yard freestyle (9:49.89) and 1650-yard freestyle (15:59.23).

Holding the men’s top times for the 50-yard backstroke (25.18) and the 200-yard backstroke (1:55.84) is freshman Brogan O’Doherty.

Freshman Brock Bales holds team-best times for the men in the 50-yard breaststroke (27.97) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.37).

With the men’s top time for the 50-yard freestyle is freshman Shane Witzki clocking in at 21.59 seconds.

Holding four top times for the women is senior Olga Livshits. She holds the top times for all three-backstroke events (50-yard, 100-yard, 200-yard) with times of 27.99, 58.9, and 2:09.08, respectively. Livshits also has the best time for the 200-yard individual medley clocking in at 2:12.33.

Senior Katie Paige has three team-best times for the women. Paige clocked in at 32.71 in the 50-yard backstroke, 56.9 in the 100-yard butterfly and 2:11.25 in the 200-yard butterfly.

Senior Mary Lacine holds two top times for the women so far this season. In the 250-yard freestyle Lacine clocked in with 2:41.25 seconds, and in the 400-yard individual medley she finished with a time of 4:42.82 seconds.

Holding the women’s best time for the 100-yard breaststroke is senior Janis McGee finishing with a time of 1:06.92.

Sophomore Kaylee Morris has four top times for the women including the 100-yard freestyle (52.83) 200-yard freestyle (1:55.53), the 50-yard freestyle (24.43) and the 50-yard fly (27.23).

Starting the second half of the season with the best time in the 500-yard freestyle is sophomore Beth Houghton with a time of 5:18.25.

Freshman Fallyn Schwake holds the top times for the women in the 1000-yard freestyle and the 1650-yard freestyle with times of 11:00.77 and 18:05.25, respectively.

Another freshman, Carolyn Belford, holds the top time in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:32.16 seconds.

Aside from the top times, many swimmers made a lot of improvements since the beginning of the season. McGill said he has seen a lot of improvement. He said many younger swimmers were inexperienced with the training aspects of swimming at first.

“A lot of our improvements have come in the weight room and our resistance and power training,” McGill said. “A lot of freshmen had not done that kind of training before so there was a larger learning curve.”

The Panthers get back to competing, starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday as they take on Ball State in Muncie, Ind.

Dan Hildebrandt can be reached at 581-2812 or djhildebrandt@eiu.edu.