By Tyler McCluskey

Assistant Sports Editor | @DEN_Sports

The Eastern men’s and women’s swim teams will have their final meet of the season before the all-awaited Summit League Championship.

The Panthers will swim against Valparaiso, a team they saw earlier this season at the Padovan Pool. Both the men and the women took home victories with the men winning 163-99 and the women winning 168.5-86.5.

In the last meet for the Panthers, the men won the relay events.

The team of senior Brogan O’Doherty, junior Patrick Wood, junior Jennings Soccorso-McCoy, and junior Brandon Robbins finished the 200-yard medley in 1:36.27.

In the 200-yard freestyle, O’Doherty, Soccorso-McCoy, junior Matt Jacobs, and junior Steve Fishman finished in the time of 1:27.05.

Coach Jacqueline Michalski said that she liked the energy level that the team brought to the meet and was impressed with the times.

“We not only had great energy, but we also had some really impressive times,” Michalski said. “Fallyn (Schwake) swam her fastest times yet of the season. We also had a handful of other swimmers, right at their fastest of the season.”

With this being the last meet before the championship, Michalski said that the team comes together by supporting themselves and to make the most of it. Michalski also said that the team is getting better from the start of the season.

“Every day we are getting better, every day we are pushing to be better than yesterday,” Michalski said. “I think we have set ourselves up perfectly to repeat what we did first semester.”

Junior Shamus Shields said that he feels confident going into this meet and that the long break gave them a chance to see how everyone was doing.

“It was nice to see as a team, where we are at,” Shields said.

Shields also said that practices have been more fast-paced.

“We’ve been kind of breaking ourselves down, tearing muscles up, getting ready,” Shields said. “The next few weeks we will start to taper and get ready for conference and focus more on getting ourselves ready for conference.”

For the Crusaders, both the men and women’s teams took last place at the Butler Invitational.

Peyton Stambeck took eighth in the 50-yard freestyle in the time of 22.21. Bob Bretl had a time of 4:56.67 in the 500-yard freestyle, which was good enough for a 10th place finish.

In the 1650-freestyle, Dylan Kirar took 10th with a time of 17:22.65.

On the women’s side for the Crusaders, Rachel Law took eighth in the 1650-yard freestyle with the time of 19:02.85. Paige Wright received two top-ten finishes in the event.

Wright had a time of 55.61 in the 100-yard freestyle and a time of 1:02.22 in the 100-yard backstroke, earning eighth and 10th respectively.

Emily Trimpe took seventh in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:11.06 and earned fourth in the 400-yard backstroke in 2:32.12.

The meet is on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Arc swimming pool in Valparaiso, Ind.

Tyler McCluskey can be reached at 581-2812 or at trmccluskey@eiu.edu