Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Sports

An Eastern women's swimmer competes at a meet against Saint Louis in the Ray Padovan Pool on Feb. 7. The Panthers lost the meet 130-113. The team will compete in the Summit League Championships this weekend. (Kelly Crement/The Daily Eastern News)

The Eastern men's and women's swim teams departed for Michigan Tuesday night. They will participate in the Summit League Championship today, Friday and Saturday.

Oakland is hosting the event at the OU Athletic Center in Rochester, Mich., where they are heavily favored to finish first in a majority of the competitions.

However, Eastern swimming head coach Matt Bos believes the focus for the teams should not be on competing against Oakland, but actually competing with the other teams in the conference.

"Oakland is just really miles ahead of everyone in the conference," Bos said. "We don't really worry about what Oakland is going to do, we try to compete more with South Dakota State and Western Illinois, because they are a little more similar to the type of team we are."

Bos said besides Oakland, the teams are extremely close. It is a matter of performing well that will decide whether Eastern finishes second or further down in the standings. The Eastern men's squad was predicted to finish in fourth according to the preseason poll. The women's squad was predicted to finished fifth according to the preseason poll.

Last season the men's and women's teams finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Bos said he feels that both the men's and women's teams are confident and are looking forward to competing in the league championship.

The women's squad defeated Summit League opponent, Indiana-Purdue-Indianapolis twice this season, but lost to conference foe Western Illinois. The men finished this season with the same results.

He said for the squads to be successful in the Summit League Championship, they must focus on their strengths in the pool.

"On the women's side, we definitely are strong in our sprint relay events and a lot of our points should come from those races," he said. "On the men's side, the breast stroke is by far our event, and we are anticipating about three guys to place high in those events."

Leading up to the league meet, Bos has had both teams going through a tapering period, where both squads spend more time resting and letting their bodies recover from the season.

Bos said in the past few days he has noticed that the time off has allowed the team to gain their energy back.

"I think their bodies are feeling better, and their energy levels are up," he said. "They're not sore anymore and they're looking good in the water, so I think the time off did exactly what it was intended to do."

Both squads have been focusing mainly on individual races, because there is flexibility in the team relay events. Bos explained that they do not really have to put their relay teams together until they see what they're up against, because a majority of the races are individual relays.

Individual relays are going to be important in the Summit League Championship, because if the squads place well in the individual morning relays, they will have a good opportunity to place high in the evening relays.

"It's really important for us to come in and swim well in the morning," Bos said. "If we can place well in the morning relays, then we will have a good shot at the evening events. In the evening events anything can really happen."


Neil Schneider can be reached at 581-7944 or jnschneider@eiu.edu.


Schedule:

Thursday

Prelims at 11 a.m., Finals at 6:30 p.m.
200 Freestyle Relay
500 Freestyle
200 Individual Medley
50 Freestyle
One-Meter Diving (men)
400 Medley Relay

Friday

200 Medley Relay
400 Individual Medley
100 Butterfly
200 Freestyle
100 Breaststroke
100 Backstroke
Three-Meter Diving (women)
800 Freestyle Relay

Saturday

One-Meter Diving (women at 1 p.m.)
1650 Freestyle
200 Backstroke
100 Freestyle
200 Breaststroke
200 Butterfly
Three-Meter Diving (men)
400 Freestyle Relay

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.