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CHARLESTON, Ill. -- The Eastern Illinois swimming squads are ready to get wet this weekend as they are set to do battle at the end-of-season Summit League Championship, being held at the IU Natatorium on the campus of IUPUI in Indianapolis, Indiana this weekend. Action begins on Thursday (Feb. 18) and continues thru Saturday (Feb. 20).

Besides the Panthers, who compete as an associate member of the league, other teams competing are Centenary, IUPUI, Oakland, South Dakota, South Dakota State, and Western Illinois.

“Everything we've been doing and training all season has been in preparation for this meet,” said second year head coach Matt Bos. “Although this meet has been our focus, we still haven't backed off in our dual meets, as both teams had nice records on the season.”

Indeed, the Panther men and women rebounded this year, improving their dual records to 6-2 and 5-3, respectively, as compared to just 4-6 for both teams last year. Last year, the EIU men took home third place, while the women finished in fifth. Oakland has dominated the team titles having won the last ten titles on both the men's and women's sides.

According to the pre-season order-of-finish predictions, which oddly the head coaches voted on way back in September, the EIU men and women are picked third and sixth, respectively. Oakland is naturally the favorite on both sides while Centenary is just ahead of the EIU men for potential second place, with the women picked to finish just ahead of the host squad IUPUI in the bottom of the list. The top eight finishers in each event will earn All-Conference honors over the course of the three-day meet.

“Oakland is the heavy favorite,” said Bos. “So barring anything drastic, like multiple disqualifications, they will be able to score well. Yet this year the talent is much deeper with the addition of South Dakota. So taking away Oakland, the next three or four squads are all very even, so it should be a good meet in that regard.”

Over the course of the past dual meet season, both EIU teams were able to dunk fellow Summit rivals IUPUI and Western Illinois in face-to-face competitions.

This year, EIU has several returning All-Summit League honorees from last, including juniors Matt Scaliatine and Cody Showers for the men, and senior Lauren Zillmer and sophomore Tyler Crittenden for the women. Each returner earned Second Team conference kudos following outstanding performances last year. In the meet, only 18 swimmers will score, with other participants able to compete in exhibition races.

Bos says that he will look to the seniors to carry the women this weekend, point-wise. “Things are a bit more solid and at ease for the women, with the senior leadership we have in several positions.” But for the guys, who are largely led by underclassman, anything can happen. “It's pretty unknown for the men,” Bos said. “Bringing 12 new people to the meet, you never know how they might react to the stress. But they have continued to step it up all year, so I don't expect anything different this weekend. Even though the guys are young, they have a great opportunity to do well.”

Top contenders on the men's side of the pool include current Summit League Top-10 performers sophomore Rich Waszak (9th) and freshman Mike Lacine (10th) in the 50-Back, as Waszak (8th) is ranked again in the 200-Back. Fellow newcomer Joe Ciliak currently sports the third best time in the 50-Breast, with sophomore Matt O'Hagan just behind in fourth and Scaliatine ninth. Ciliak and O'Hagan also have a respective third and fourth spot ranking in the 100-Breast, with freshman Ken Tiltges tied for seventh. Meanwhile, in the 200-Breast, Scaliatine (3rd), O'Hagan (6th), and Ciliak (8th) are ranked among the top leaders.

Other rankings include newcomer John Wilson with an eighth ranking in both 50 and 100-Free events, while fellow freshman Tyler Hsieh is ninth in the 200-Free. Junior Nathan Moritz is ranked eighth in the 200-Fly, while Tiltges (6th) and Lacine (7th) are amongst the top performers for the 200-IM. Rounding out the league rankings, freshman Michael Bower and Scaliatine are currently ranked seventh and tenth in the 400-IM.

For the women, top ten swimmers include senior standout Lauren Zillmer in the 50-Free (10th), 100-Free (8th), and 200-Free (6th), with fellow classmate Laura Nilsen ranked for her 50-Back (6th), 100-Back (7th), 200-Back (5th), and 200-IM (6th) times.

Other top ten individuals for the ladies include freshman Hailey Foss (8th) and junior Megan Eshleman (9th) in the 1000-Free, while Eshleman also sports a ninth place standing in the 1650-Free. Eshleman's classmate, Alyssa Lehman, owns the tenth best time in the 50-Back, in addition to the eighth fastest listing in the 200-Back.

Finally, rounding out the list for the women, newcomer Kelli Dicanio has the ninth and sixth place ranking in her 100 and 200-Breast races, respectively, with senior Kellie Logterman sporting the seventh fasted time in the 100-Fly.

Numerous EIU relay squads are also listed with top times out of all league members, including second-best times for the women's 200-Free and Medley foursomes. While the men, meanwhile, own the third fastest time in the 200-Medley, 400-Free and 800-Free relays, and the fourth-best 200-Free and 400-Medley performances.

Not surprisingly, various members of the Oakland squads own numerous top times in various swimming events.

Action for the meet is set to begin at 11 am for each of the three morning sessions, and 6:30 pm for both scheduled evening events on Thursday and Friday. However, action starts at 6 pm for the final evening's events on Saturday.

Free Live stats for the meet are available via the IUPUI website (links above). Meanwhile, fans unable to make the jaunt to Indy can catch all the action, for a fee, with the available web streaming process (links above). 

... for more info, contact Bart Rettberg, Asst. SID