Terre Haute, Ind.—The Indiana State Sycamores fell to the reigning Missouri Valley Conference Champions, the Southern Illinois Salukis, in their final home meet of 2016-2017.

Tonight's meet was also the final regular season meet for Indiana State as they will travel to Iowa City, Iowa for the MVC Championships from Feb. 15-18.

"Coming in today we knew SIU was the conference champions and we just wanted to get up and race and mix up our swims a little bit as we keep preparing for conference. We came out with some great intention and some great energy and unfortunately made some freshmen mistakes that hurt us, but we kept trucking along," said head coach Matt Leach.

ISU was disqualified in the opening event for a violation, but continued to fight throughout the meet. Elisabeth Peskin followed in the second event with a strong 1000 free, followed by a second place finish from Courtney Skelley in the 200 free and a time of 1:57.93.

The most notable performance came from Cierra Campbell who set the lone record of the night in the 200 fly with a time of 2:07.94.

"We knew she was a butterflyer most of the year and it was just a time where we could get her in that event and she crushed it. She did a great job and also had a season best in the 500 free, but across the board we had some girls that were getting really excited about swimming events they hadn't swam all year," said Leach.

Indiana State has improved at every meet throughout their inaugural season. The all freshmen squad has set new school records from week to week and these swims include many season and lifetime bests. There has truly been an evolution of the program from the initial meet at Notre Dame to now.

"It's really great to see the girls and how they have progressed from the beginning of the season coming in and not really feeling like they deserve to be here. We did a lot of great work over Christmas training and that's when the team really came together and were able to establish our own unique brand of family," said assistant coach Rebecca Westfall.

Indiana State has earned themselves three wins this season along with many other close meets. The Sycamores had their most recognizable win over the Butler Bulldogs on Jan. 14 by a score of 143 to 107.

ISU will get a second shot at their conference rivals in three weeks at the MVC meet.

"They now know they deserve to be here and they know that they've put in the work and we are really excited to see what the team can do at conference," said Westfall.