The men’s and women’s swimming teams are back to practice this week after testing the waters at the University of Louisville Friday and Xavier University Saturday to start the season.

Louisville’s women’s team handed Eastern its first loss of the season 144-97 while Eastern’s men’s squad took a 130-107 win. The men also took a 62-60 win at Xavier while the women again struggled to a 71-51 loss.

The men’s side has nine seniors to lead the team with a solid freshman recruiting class coming in to add balance to the team.

“We knew coming in we had a better group. They’ve been coming together real well,” head coach Ray Padovan said. “Louisville was a bit of a surprise. They were weaker than we thought.”

Sophomore Rich Whalgren saw success throughout the weekend, winning both the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle at Louisville and Xavier.

“Rich swam fantastic this weekend,” Padovan said.

Padovan also had the opportunity to look at the new faces on the team as well as the improvements made by the veterans.

“It was a hard weekend to open with a traveling trip,” Padovan said. “It was a lot of swimming in a short amount of time. A few people started to feel the affects, but it happens.

“It was a real good way of opening up the season. They have to get used to it – the next four weeks are like that.”

Josh Kercheval, who is recovering from a Labor Day bike accident, finished first at Xavier in the 100 backstroke (55.19) and the 200 IM (2:00). He also finished first in the 500-yard freestyle at Louisville with a time of 2:00.15.

Joe DeLuca won the 100 butterfly at Xavier with a time of 54.88 while teammate Nick Croucher won the 200-yard breaststroke at Louisville with a time of 2:16.05.

“The men are off to a great start,” Padovan said.

“We’ve started to beat teams that beat us last year. We can’t do any better than that.”

On the women’s side, the team is still regrouping after losing a core of seniors who led the team to a school record season of 11-1.

“The complexion of the women’s team has changed,” Padovan said. “We lost a few swimmers who were top of the top and we need to do some building.

“At Louisville, we knew we were going in against a better team and Xavier got a lot better. The one thing that hurt us a lot is that Louisville doesn’t have any divers, and that’s one of our strengths.”

Without diving to add to Eastern’s score, the women had to rely on the performance of the swimmers in Louisville. Allison Kenny won the 50-yard freestyle (25.24) and the 100-yard freestyle (56.85) while teammate Michelle Wroblewski won the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:36.76.

At Xavier, Jordan Sherbrooke won the 200 freestyle (1:58) and the 500 freestyle (5:17) while Kenny took first-place finishes in the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle.

“I didn’t think we swam real bad,” Padovan said. “Down the road and in bigger meets, we’ll be better.

“We’re going to have a battle coming off one of the best teams we’ve had. We need to build on where we’ve started.”

The men and women travel to Bradley Friday before hosting the University of Illinois-Chicago at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Lantz Natatorium.