No one comes into our house and wins against us. This philosophy held its true form Saturday as both SIUC swimming and diving teams denied the opposition victory.

Three divers for the Salukis qualified for the preliminary NCAA Championships this season. For the women’s squad, junior diver Lisa Holland and sophomore diver Karla Gerzema both qualified on the one-meter board.

The women took first, second, and third place on both the one-meter and three-meter boards.

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For the men’s squad, sophomore Alex Wright also qualified for the championships, as he took first place on both boards.

I’m not surprised that we stepped up a notch or two. Everyone carried their share of the load, said diving head coach Dave Ardrey. They (the team) stepped up and really accepted the challenge.

Overall, SIUC overwhelmed the competition Saturday, as the men and women crushed Henderson State University 95-15 and 96-16. The Salukis dealt University of Evansville a huge loss with the men winning 86-27 and the women winning 85-28.

The closest any team came to giving SIUC a challenge came from NCAA Division II Drury College, who SIUC men’s head coach Rick Walker said will probably be one of the top contenders in the NCAA Division II Championships. However, the Salukis dominated the water, beating Drury College 64-49 and 73-40.

SIUC men’s swim coach Rick Walker said the meet went right down the way he had expected it to.

I think we have a higher quality of athletes, but the problem is we just don’t go deep, he said. That means there are going to be battles where you didn’t normally have battles.

The freshmen swimmers on Walker’s squad showed why they are on the team. Walker said he was very satisfied with the Saluki duo of Patrick Bever and Liam Weseloh.

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I was very impressed with our 200 breaststroke, he said. Patrick Bever had an outstanding swim.

Liam Weseloh won two of three events that he swam in individually. To win the 1000 and 200 which were back to back, made it extremely difficult to come back and do as well as he did in the 500. That is even more impressive.

Although Walker sees areas of individual improvement, he said the team was swimming faster earlier than they ever swam in past seasons.

There’s a lot of heart in these guys. The last relay could have fallen apart. Instead, it proved itself to be a very viable relay, Walker said. I’m extremely proud of these guys.

SIUC women’s head coach Mark Kluemper has much to be pleased with also.

We’re right where we want to be, for sure. We had a real tough week of workouts, and I wasn’t expecting some of the faster swims, Kluemper said.

Overall, there wasn’t any one thing we were disappointed in.

Ila Barlean swam really well her time in the100 freestyle was outstanding, said Kluemper. Jennifer Bobanic had a really good meet as she won the 200 free and 200 back.

As the team looks forward to next weekend and competing against the universities of Kansas and Nebraska, coach Kluemper was very candid.

Next week is like stepping from the minors to the majors Kansas and Nebraska are both very good teams and it will be a completely different story, said Kluemper.