The Eastern men’s and women’s swim teams will compete at the House of Champions this weekend hosted by IUPUI in Indianapolis. The meets will stretch from Friday through Sunday, running all day.

Both Eastern teams are coming off their first victories of the year over Valparaiso last Saturday at Padovan Pool and hope that they can keep that momentum moving forward into the weekend at House of Champions.

The teams will run into Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis for the second time this season.

Eastern opened the year on Oct. 17, when both the men and the women fell short of a victory the first time they saw IUPUI. The men lost by a score of 142-63, and the women lost 155-48. The Panthers will also see schools such as University of Indiana, University of Evansville, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Lewis University, Butler University at the House of Champions.

Since this will be the second time swimming against IUPUI, the teams will know how they swim their races. Eastern coach Jacqueline Michalksi said she noticed last time that IUPUI has a lot of depth.

Michalski also said that all the schools would have an advantage over Eastern because they will have a full roster and the Panthers are still not at full strength because swimmers with illnesses.

The House of Champions will have all of the events that are offered for a regular meet.

The meets will start on Friday with the 200-freestyle relay, 500-freestyle, 200-individual medley, 50-freestyle and the 400-medley.

On Saturday the swimmers will start off with the 200-medley, 400-individual medley, 100-butterfly, 200-freestyle, 100-breaststroke, 100-backstroke, and finish off with the 800-freestyle relay.

On Sunday they will start off with the 1,650, 200-backstroke, 100-freestyle, 200-breaststroke, 200-butterfly and the 400-freestyle relay.

Because the Panthers are down so many people this weekend, they will have to approach the races differently.

“Because we’re down a few people we’re really just focusing on individual times and individual race strategies, as compared to the last meet we were a little more focused on trying to as a team win,” Michalski said.

As opposed to the previous meets, the swimmers will most likely not have to swim in an unfamiliar race even with the unavailable swimmers, and will be swimming in their prime events.

Michalski said that this weekend’s races will be set up similar to how their conference meets will be set up. So, they are trying and testing out to see what their conference runs will be.

This will be the last time the Panthers are in the pool until next year, when they will be at the Western Illinois Double-Dual on Jan. 16, and 17.

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or smhastings@eiu.edu.