The Eastern men’s and women’s swim teams will have their first competitive meet of the semester at Millikin University Saturday.

Despite having its first meet since break, assistant coach Bill Yanney said the long training hours in Fort Lauderdale Fla., helped keep the team focused and ready to compete.

“The layoff won’t have any impact,” Yanney said. “We have been putting more intensive work and yardage in our practice. It will be our first chance to see the results from the training we did in Florida.”

“We swam in the short course for yardage, in the afternoon technique drills (and) in a long course pool,” Yanney said.

The meet at Millikin will be the first of three meets the Panthers will have before going into conference competetition.

Yanney said the meet against Millikin is more about preparation than team results.

“This is just pretty much a tune-up meet for St. Louis,” Yanney said. “We are putting more emphasis on individual performance rather than a team performance. As a team we aren’t going to have any real problem against Millikin because of their inexperience and lack of numbers.”

Not only will the Panthers use the meet to see how individual swimmers perform, the Panthers are also preparing for their meet against Conference USA’s Saint Louis University.

Although Yanney expects solid team performance at the meet, the individual performance from women’s swimmer Teren O’Tolle will be of special note as O’Tolle has worked her way up to become the number two swimmer for the women’s team.

“I look for her to draw some time and have an impact especially during the conference meet,” Yanney said.

Men’s swimmer Jon Meier also had a pair of excellent performances against Butler and Saint Louis in previous meets and is expected to repeat as a force on the men’s team.

“Jon Meier has had some excellent meets before at Butler and Staint Louis,” Yanney said. “He is pretty flexible with his events and also swims Individual, freestyle. We’ve been experimenting with him and he is going to make an impact no matter what he swims.”