After swimming four days in Sioux Falls, S.D., the Eastern men and women swim teams finished their season at the Summit League Championship.

The men’s team finished in fifth place out of six with 308 points, one place higher than their finish last season. As for the women’s team at 205 points, they finished in sixth place, just 14 points behind Western.

Despite their overall finish, multiple school records were broken for the Panthers. The Panthers’ highest placing came from senior Steve Fishman as he finished second in the 100-yard individual medley with a time of 51.09, giving him the new school record.

Also, for the men’s team, senior Matt Jacobs is now the new owner of the 200-yard breaststroke record for the Panthers as he earned sixth place with a time of 2:04.28.

For the women’s team, two records were broken on Saturday as senior Danielle DiMatteo finished fifth in the 100-yard individual medley, touching the wall at 58.83. The other Panther record broken came from junior Lauren Oostman during Saturday night’s finals.

During the 100-yard backstroke finals, Oostman finished eighth place with the new Panther record time of 56.78. Going into the championship, Oostman was unsure of how she was going to perform.

“My meet went better than I expected,” Oostman said. “With breaking the 100-back record (and) having multiple best times, I was very happy with the outcome of the meet.”

As for the team events on Saturday, both teams placed fifth in the 400-yard freestyle relay. For the women’s team, Oostman, DiMatteo, freshman Sarah Lohman, and junior Martee Grainger touched the wall at 3:33.13.

The men’s quartet of freshmen Scott House and Ivan Escott, and seniors Nick Harkins and Brandon Robbins closed out the tournament with a time of 3:05.65.

On Thursday, the Panthers finished with 11 top-16 finishes, the highest placing coming from House. In the 50-yard freestyle, his time of 21.04 earned him an eighth-place finish with Harkins finishing 11th (21.34).

The highest relay placing for the Panthers came from the men’s team in the 200-yard freestyle relay as they finished fourth with a 1:22.82 time. The swimmers in the event were House, Fishman, Jacobs, and Harkins.

The Panthers repeated their placings Friday as they finished with 11 top-16 finishes again. This time, their highest individual placing came from Jacobs as he finished sixth with a time of 56.69 in the 100-yard breaststroke.

For the 400-yard medley relay, the quartet of Fishman, Robbins, Escott and House placed with a time of 3:42.59.

Even though the Panthers finished in fifth and sixth, the swimmers are not discouraged with their place this year and are holding their heads high as they look forward to next season.

“A lot of us have good mindsets going into this off season to push ourselves more and get more best times next year,” Oostman said. “With that, I think we can easily beat Western at conference and place higher.”

For the fifth consecutive year, Denver won the championship for both the men’s and women’s swim team. This year, the men’s team totaled a score of 1,094 and a score of 1,081 for the women’s team.

Adam Shay can be reached at 581-2812 or acshay@eiu.edu