The SIUC men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams retained their respective titles as the Salukis repeated as Missouri Valley Conference Champions this past weekend at the recreation center pool.

SIUC held its title by holding off Southwest Missouri State by the score of 885-848, while the Universities of Evansville, Northern Iowa and Bradley University finished third, fourth and fifth respectively.

The SIUC women’s team won the meet with 956 points, almost 200 points ahead of ISU who had 774 points. Evansville, Northern Iowa and Bradley fell into order behind the two leaders.

Neither men’s swim coach Rick Walker, nor the men’s swim team were shaken by the second-place ranking coming into the MVC Championship meet.

Everyone performed at a higher level, men’s coach Rick Walker said. Why did it happen? Because they didn’t want to be second.

Walker said the results could have been different were it not for some good luck on his squad’s part.

Southwest had some bad luck on relays, and that’s part of the sport, Walker said. It could have been us or anybody.

This (swimming) is a year long situation and our swimmers are extremely smart about where they are and what our situation is, he said. Knowing that, we just try to focus on maximizing our talents and minimizing our deficits.

Despite having two swimmers on the men’s side who were recovering from an illness or swimming with an injury, the team still overcame the opposition.

Junior swimmer Chris Pelant, who was sidelined for eight weeks with mononucleosis, returned to practice last Monday and put in an outstanding effort this weekend helping to set a new MVC record in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:23.47.

Pelant also placed third in the 100 and 200-yard butterflies while also being a member of the first place 200-yard medley and 800-yard free relay teams.

Senior swimmer Doug Fulling broke his hand last Wednesday, according to Walker, when he tripped on the stairs to his apartment. Fulling swam with the cast on during the Conference Championship.

It (the broken hand) affected his performance tremendously, Walker said. You’ve done everything with equal weight and now all of the sudden one hand is heavier than the other. It throws timing off and mental psyche out, but we could have been without Doug altogether and we weren’t.

Walker said the presence of Fulling added inspiration to the team.

As team inspiration, he probably added more than the points he scored, Walker said.

The men’s swim team contributed 13 All-Conference swimmers to the MVC this season equaling last season’s total.

Sophomores Jeff Clark and Steve Munz came away with six and seven All-Conference performances respectively.

The men’s diving squad performed at a high level over the weekend as well, aiding their team to the eventual championship.

Sophomore diver Alex Wright placed first on both the 1 and 3-meter boards while setting a new conference record on the 3-meter with 546.80 points.

He has made great strides and great improvements, and he is nowhere near done, diving coach Dave Ardrey said. He has a lot of room to improve and he knows that.

Facing the women’s team was the challenge and pressure of defending its title as well.

The most encouraging thing to me out of this weekend is that we not only won this meet and swam well here, but I saw signs in the races that told me we are going to get better and better in the second half, women’s coach Mark Kluemper said.

After being out of competition during last year’s MVC Championship meet with an injury, senior swimmer Ila Barlean finally got to show the conference just how talented she is.

Barlean walked away from the meet with the honor of being the MVC Woman Swimmer of the Year which she said was unexpected, but very exciting.

Barlean turned in three individual first place All-Conference finishes while adding four first place All-Conference titles in relay events.

During the course of the grueling three-day meet, Barlean managed to break conference records in all three of her individual events.

Although Barlean swam well over the weekend, she said she never expected to win her individual events.

I never expect to win any race because there is always someone better, Barlean said. I wanted to win, but I can’t say I expected it.

Kluemper said Barlean has been waiting for this moment for a long time.

I think Ila was really determined to have a great meet, Kluemper said. She didn’t decide that (having a great season) two weeks before this meet or even back in September. She decided that back in March of last year.

I knew this was coming. She swam even better than I expected, he said. She is so focused this year on doing well and it’s just going to get better.

Barlean said she swam well in the dual meets earlier in the season and had somewhat expected to perform well in the MVC Championships.

I just wanted to swim well, Barlean said. My major goal was for the team to swim well, but Mark wanted me to put up an individual goal, so I put up a goal and I had the drive to actually achieve it.

Sophomore Diana Roberts landed six first-place finishes, and just as many All-Conference honors.

A basic goal of mine is to have better dual meets next semester, Roberts said. My main concern is to make the NCAA’s by end of the season.

Roberts explained she was not sure what her performance level would be this year.

This year I am really excited about how well I have done so far and hopefully I’ll do better, she said.

Roberts, who swims the individual medley, freestyle, backstroke and butterfly events, said her versatility in the water helps her perform better.

I think it helps out because it gives a change of pace to everything, Roberts said. You’re not always concentrating on the same thing and it adds more variety, and that keeps me going.

Ardrey said one diving prospect, freshman Lydia Ball, has decided she was not going to sit back and wait to make her mark on the conference.

Ball broke the MVC Championship record for 1-meter diving with 381.85 points.

Earlier in the season I talked about Lydia (Ball) being the diver of the future for our program, and she could eventually dominate, Ardrey said. Well, she made the decision that she was going to dominate right now.

Kluemper said it is a credit to his team that they captured the title on very little rest compared to the rest of the conference.

We only rested for three days, Kluemper said. The rest of the teams rested from a week to two weeks. We didn’t sacrifice the second half of the year to be successful here and we are real proud of these women.

They got the job done, and yet they did it the right way, he said.