Eastern will swim against a familiar foe on Saturday, when the Panthers compete against Western Illinois.

Each year, Eastern matches up against Western, but for the most part recently they have not had much success recently.

“For awhile now we’ve faced them,” Eastern head coach Ray Padovan said. “We haven’t had much success against them in that time, recently we’ve only won two years ago.”

This year, however, the Panthers may have the edge because they have swum more events than Western has.

So far the Leathernecks have only competed in two events, and the first was not a very formal meet.

“We can’t take much away from their first event because it wasn’t a meet that was designed the same way a conference meet would have been,” Padovan said.

In that meet the Leathernecks lost to an IUPUI team that Eastern has already defeated this year. But because the event was not held in the same manner as most are, Padovan does not take as much away from Western’s result in that event.

The Panthers, on the other hand, have needed the experience that they have gained so far this year. The team is young, and Padovan is going through the process of learning where each new swimmer deserves to be placed.

Thus, in the five meets the Panthers have swum in so far this season Padovan has had the opportunity to learn a little more about his players.

“I am still in the process of learning exactly where each player belongs,” Padovan said. “So far we have had some young swimmers swim well, but there are others who I do not exactly have a concrete idea about yet.”

Both the Panthers men’s and women’s teams have found success so far this season.

The women have only had one injury to the team, which will keep Rachel Willenborg out of the meet with a knee problem.

Besides that, Eastern matches up favorably with the Leathernecks in both the men’s and women’s teams.

“The men have been swimming well, but they have been off-and-on better than us for a little while,” Padovan said. “The women for Western have been very good lately and should be improved, it could be a tough match against them.”

These two teams are certainly not unfamiliar with each other, as both programs have competed against each other for so long the coaches can’t even remember how long the rivalry has gone on.

“It seems like we have been swimming against Western forever,” Padovan said. “They are there at the Midwest Championships too, and we swim against a lot of common opponents. There are a lot of similarities between the two programs.”