This weekend’s meets against Western Illinois and Butler University were full of excitement and controversy as both teams pulled out victories to boost their records to 6-0 for the men and 4-2 for the women.

The men’s team won against Western in a 135-104 score.

The meet was much closer than the 31-point decision would indicate.

Even though Eastern was in the lead after the second event and never lost it, the tension was high throughout the meet.

“(Friday) the men swam phenomenal,” head coach Raymond Padovan said. “It was just a matter of winning every close race.”

Eastern freshman Tom Watson and junior Rich Wahlgren each notched two first-place finishes against Western. Watson won in the 1000- and 500-yard freestyle.

Wahlgren won the 50- and 100-yard freestyle. Zach Miller took second in both the one- and three-meter diving and as part of the 400-yard relay team-A. It continued its dominance, finishing a full six seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

“We are extremely happy to drop more time (in the 400) … we keep getting faster and faster,” Watson said. “It’s incredible.”

The men’s team won 130-96 over Butler and the women won 140-95. Again the score didn’t show how the meet was played out.

With a lesser opponent in Butler the team was able to place different swimmers in what one Eastern swimmer called “off-events.”

The lineup for this meet was vastly different that the lineup for other meets and both teams were able to come out with a win.

Not competing any divers didn’t help Butler any because they were automatically losing anywhere from 9 to 13 points for each event.

“We’re swimming off-events,” senior Adam Brown said. “And it’s close, a lot closer than it should be.”

The story of the weekend came from the women’s meet on Friday against Western.

Going into the final race of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, Eastern was losing 106-100 and needed two of the top three places to win the meet.

Beth Rhodes, a participant of the 400-relay team said, ” Ray said we had to swim our best time cause the meet depended on it.”

In the race Eastern captured first and Western took second place. So the meet came down to the race for third and fourth.

It was unclear whether or not the Western competitor hit the touch pad, the device used for keeping time, so the race official Scott Ebinger was left to the duties of awarding finishing positions.

“For whatever reason, lane 5 didn’t go off and it was to my discretion as to who gets first, second and third,” Ebinger said.

It was the only time that night in which any of the timing devices appeared not to work and it happened at the most crucial time.

Ebinger awarded Eastern third-place and consequently, the Panthers won the the meet 113-110. In what might be forever know as the “touch pad controversy” the Western swim team responded with profane words and impolite gestures as they felt they were a victim of home-pool advantage.

“I don’t think it was really that important. We wanted to win and we didn’t,” Western head coach Kelly Byrne said. She declined to comment further.”

Eastern junior Allison Kenny continued her undefeated streak against Western by sweeping the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events.

Jordan Sherbrooke won the 500- and 200-freestyle. Senior Jessica Kaatz took first in the 200-backstroke and diver Lindsae Baldes took first in the 1 meter and second in the 3 meter.

Coming out of this weekend with back-to-back wins will be a confidence boost for both teams as they have a couple of idle weeks before their next meet Dec. 1.