The men and women’s swim teams finished up a pair of double-duals at Western Illinois with South Dakota this past weekend.

The women went 2-2 over the weekend and the men dropped both of its meets. The women took down the Leathernecks in both meets but would drop both meets to South Dakota

On Saturday, the women beat Western Illinois by a score of 130-123 and fell 196-76 to South Dakota.

Overall coach Jacqueline Michalski was pleased with how things went.

“There was a lot of things we had to overcome, and they did definitely on Saturday,” Michalski said.

She noticed both teams energy and pep in their strokes was much better and said it shows her teams are able to fight through the two-plus day meets.

Michalski was most impressed with how the teams were able to turn things around and have a much better Saturday meet.

“The first day it was rough adjusting to the new pool and it was a hard week of training,” Michalski said. “On Saturday we really came back, we had the most energy on deck, better strokes, better turns, and just a much better team than Friday.”

Michalski said the Panthers could have done a little bit better with over coming some of the hurdles on Friday, and maybe have a little more support for each other.

She would add as a whole, her team did well.

A swimmer that stood out for the Panthers was junior Jake Roberts who won the men’s 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:12.54 defeating the second place Leatherneck finisher by six seconds.

“He really stepped it up, he won the 1,000 (freestyle) and put up some really good fights and races in his events,” Michalski said.

She would say it was one of the best races turned in from the Panthers over the weekend.

Michalski said another one of the best races came from sophomore Fallyn Schwake’s 1,650-yard freestyle.

Schwake took third in the race, but Michalski was very pleased with how she improved from the House of Champions meet back in November.

Another swimmer that stood out was freshman Amy Smith, who was the only Panther to be the first to touch the wall in a race on Friday.

She won the women’s 100-yard backstroke with a time of 59.77 out swimming the second place swimmer of South Dakota by four seconds.

Michalski was impressed by sophomore Brogan O’Doherty who had a close second place finish in the men’s 100-yard backstroke with a time of 54.50, just one second behind the first place Western Illinois finisher.

Michalski was pleased with how things went overall for the weekend, but knows that the teams need to improve before the conference meets that will take place February 18^th through the 21^st.

The one thing she thinks the team can improve on is the on deck presence.

“We cant get anywhere if we don’t come together,” Michalski said she tells the team all the time.

The next time the Panthers will be in the pool will be Saturday where they will take on Valparaiso in Valparaiso, Ind. at 1 p.m.

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].