The Eastern men’s and women’s swim teams started its season this past weekend that had 12 swimmers swimming for the first time at the collegiate level.

The men and women both competed in the Illinois Invitational on Friday competing against Illinois, Western and Olivet Nazarene.

The women swam against Illinois, Olivet and Western but the men only went against Western and Olivet.

Although the men were not able to get a win against either school, the women were able to outswim Western winning by a score of 241.50-171.50.

The women lost to Olivet and Illinois by scores of 260-154 and 371-66. The men lost to Olivet and Illinois.

The women started off the day finishing in fourth in the 800-yard freestyle relay. The team of senior Kelsey Ferguson, freshman Martee Grainger, senior Beth Houghton and junior Paige Eavenson came in with a time of 8:19.38. Illinois won with a time of 7:27.17.

The men also took fourth in their 800-yard freestyle relay. Freshman Nick Harkins, sophomore Steve Fishman, sophomore Bryan McPherson and senior Jake Roberts turned in a time of 7:20.09, 17 seconds behind the team of Olivet who won.

Junior Brogan O’Doherty was one of the top swimmers for the men as he had a couple top five finishes.

O’Doherty won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 52.93 touching the wall just before senior Jacob Anderson of Olivet.

He also came in second for the 50-yard backstroke with a time of 25.26, just over a second behind Anderson.

Senior Kaylee Morris finished in fourth for the women’s 50-yard butterfly, just three seconds behind freshman Lori Lynn of Illinois. The top three swimmers were all from Illinois.

The teams also competed on Saturday when they hosted Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis at the Padovan Pool with many swimmers seeing improvements.

Grainger was one of the swimmers who dropped her times in the meet. She posted a 29.24 in the 200-yard medley, .13 seconds better than her previous times.

This was her first weekend of collegiate swimming, and she said she was pretty happy with how things went.

“It’s always good to drop time and for this point in the season, it felt pretty good,” Grainger said.

Grainger swam in events that she normally doesn’t swim in so she said that she told herself that any result would be a good one in her eyes.

Sophomore Brandon Robbins also saw his time in the 200-yard freestyle drop by 2.17 seconds. He finished with a time of 1:49.43.

All three swimmers for Eastern in the women’s 50-yard freestyle saw a time drop. Morris finished with a time of 24.77 improving by .32 seconds, senior Bridgett Bowen saw a time drop of .71 seconds to finish at 27.92 and junior Jessie Freudenthaler improved by .60 posting a time of 28.22.

Although the teams didn’t get as many wins as they’d like Ferguson, a captain of the women’s team said they were happy with how things went.

“Overall I think it was a good weekend for the team, we had some standout swims and everyone raced every event until the end,” Ferguson said.

She said the women’s team’s win against Western just came from staying focused and taking it race by race.

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