The SIUC men and women’s swimming and diving teams faced tough competition over the weekend as both teams produced third place finishes.

University of Minnesota, ranked 10th in the nation, stole the familiar waters of Purdue over the weekend taking the men’s title with 856 points.

Purdue followed with a distant 605.5 points and SIUC took third with 417 points. Notre Dame cleaned up the pool with 300.5 points.

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In the face of all the top class competition, the men’s swimming and diving team held ground over the weekend.

Sophomore swimmer William Enoch took second place in the 1000-yard freestyle recording a time of 9.43.80, the 200-yard freestyle relay team placed third with a time of 1.27.11, and sophomore diver Alex Wright finished third on both the 1 and 3-meter boards with point totals of 456.20 and 476.40 respectively.

Men’s coach Rick Walker said facing Minnesota and Purdue was a good experience for his team.

If we want to be at that level, we have to learn how to compete against guys like that, Walker said. The second thing is that not one of the guys stood up there and was afraid to compete, that taught us that every man on the block is just like the other. Some have a little more talent, but it’s a matter of whether or not you want to be there.

Walker said his team’s performance against Missouri on Jan. 13 showed how tired they were from their trip to Spain and the turnaround performance over the weekend shows where is team is now.

We performed much more up to our expectations this past weekend. Now that we’re going into our resting stage, our performance helps us know we’re on our mark, he said.

The women Salukis fell to strong Big Ten host Purdue (765.5 points) and Notre Dame (538) while placing third with 467 points by defeating University of Toledo (372.5).

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Overall, I’m real pleased with how we swam, women’s coach Mark Kluemper said. We did not swim well against Missouri, I think people were still a little perturbed from the training trip we took to Spain and it was good to see the team bounce back and perform very well this weekend up in Indianapolis, he said.

Although the women’s team was not up to capacity strength because of the absence of Anne Underwood due to mononucleosis, and Donianzu Murgiondo due to preparation for graduate school, the team managed to produce outstanding performances.

Bright spots for the women’s team were senior swimmers Melanie Davis, Ila Barlean, and junior Jennifer Bobanic.

Junior diver Lisa Holland finished third on the 1-meter board collecting 348.95 points.

Davis won the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2.10.12. She also placed second in the 400-yard IM and 200-yard breaststroke with times of 4.34.52 and 2.24.54 respectively.

Barlean won the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.44 and she finished second in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.63.

Bobanic grabbed two third places finishes in the 100-yard and 200-yard butterfly with times of 58.62 and 2.09.05.

According to Kluemper, Purdue and Notre Dame brought out very good competition for his team.

They (Purdue) are hoping to finish third or fourth in the Big Ten. They are a real solid team and we didn’t go up there entertaining thoughts that we could beat Purdue, but we were looking forward to swimming against them, women’s coach Mark Kluemper.

Notre Dame is a team I think we are capable of beating, Kluemper said. I think in a different situation it would be a better meet between us and Notre Dame.

They’ve got a pretty solid team and they’re a little bigger team than us, but I think we match up well with them head to head, he said.