The Eastern men’s and women’s swim teams both fell to Ball State to start off the 2014 portion of the season over the weekend in Muncie, Ind.

The men ended up losing by a score of 148-75 with a total of three event wins out of 13. Freshman Harris Thompson came up with two of those wins; he won the 1000-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle. Senior Josh Miller came up with the third win for the men in the 200-yard backstroke.

The women lost by a final score of 164-62, winning two events along the way. In the final event for the women, which was the 200-yard freestyle relay, the squad consisting of Katie Paige, Kaylee Morris, Caitlin Danforth and Joann Wakefield took home top honors, winning the race with a time of 1:40.53 seconds.

For the other team win, freshman Carolyn Belford came up with a victory in the 200-yard breaststroke.

Despite the losses, coach Elliot McGill thought the team had a good overall performance. He said that areas the team has been working on showed up in the results.

“Despite some times that were not what we wanted, we performed very well,” McGill said. “The skills we’ve worked on are much, much better.”

This being the first meet of the 2014 part of the season, the team might have been a little rusty in the pool, but McGill said he does not want the team to make any excuses.

“The long lay-off might have [played a role in the outcomes],” McGill said. “It’s still not an excuse and we know that. We are better than the times we put up, and will definitely perform better going forward.”

The Panther men’s team now stands at 0-6 on the season, while the women are 1-6.

Consistent improvement throughout the season has been a point of strength for Eastern this season, McGill said.

“We swam faster than last year at this time, so I was fairly content with our times,” McGill said.

The only thing Eastern can control at this point is how fast it can swim for the rest of the season. Everything else will fall in place as long as the Panthers keep improving their times, as McGill said he wants to see the team put up better times in future meets.

“Just swim faster,” he said. “Everything else is coming together. So for now, just swim faster.”

Eastern gets back to competition again when it hosts Western Illinois at 6 p.m. Friday at Padovan Pool.

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