She's been by her side through it all.

During the tough races and grueling practices, freshman swimmer Krystle Eberwein could always count on having her twin sister Lori close by.

So close, in fact, that Lori was never more than a lane or two away.

And, after several months of blazing their own paths in college swimming — Krystle at Penn State and Lori at Michigan — the two sisters were reunited as the Big Ten championship meet began yesterday at Indiana University.

"I haven't seen her too often," Krystle said Monday before the team headed to Indiana. "I still talk to her at least once a week on the phone, but I'm excited to see her. We're staying in the same hotel, so I'm going to get to see her a lot."

While spending three days catching up at the hotel would be nice, the reunion isn't all fun and games. Krystle and Lori, who both specialize in the distance freestyle, are swimming the same three events. Both swimmers swam the 500 freestyle yesterday, with only Lori making the finals, and they are also scheduled to compete in the 200 and 1650 freestyle events.

This means that there is still a good chance the twins will face each other in a preliminary heat, or the finals, before the meet concludes.

"I don't think it's going to be that weird considering we used to swim each other so much," Lori said about the possibility of going head-to-head with Krystle. "I'm just really excited to see her and swim with her again."

Krystle agreed, and she said that anyone who is expecting to see an ugly sibling rivalry unfold at the meet should look elsewhere.

"I don't think either of us cares about beating the other," Krystle said. "We just care about doing well for ourselves."

And, of course, they are concerned with earning points for their respective teams. Although they are coming to the meet from different directions, both Michigan and Penn State are serious contenders for the team title.

"I think Michigan and Penn State are both awesome teams," Lori said. "It's just really neat that Krystle and I could be on both of them and be at the same meet swimming for such awesome teams."

Just because they respect each other's programs doesn't mean twins have refrained from some good-natured trash talking.

"We've just been talking to each other and I'll say 'Oh, Penn State's going to beat Michigan' and she just tells me 'Michigan is going to get Penn State'," Krystle said. "It's not like a rivalry, it's just fun competition."

Actually, while it seems logical that the rivalry would be worse now that the sisters are scoring points for different teams, both Lori and Krystle agree that they feel less competitive.

"I think it has actually been bad for me in the past because she has always beaten me," Krystle said. "So I always kind of backed off when I swam against her because I was intimidated. Now I'm away from her and haven't been training with her, so I haven't been worried about it."

In the same respect, Lori said she feels less pressure now that both swimmers are doing their day-to-day training in different locations. Lori began swimming at the age of six at a swim club in the twins' hometown of Maple Glen, and Krystle joined her a year later.

"It's different because we'd always swim in the same lane every single day," Lori said. "Now, it just keeps any competition away. Not that we were real competitive, but just so we don't have to talk about swimming all the time."

So, now that they are at different schools, both sisters are pleased with the arrangement. However, they didn't enter the recruitment process with any special intentions.

"We started out looking at a lot of the same schools, but we just decided that we'd do our own thing and see where we ended up," Lori said. "We didn't want to base our decision on each other."

In this respect, their mother, Cheryl, believes they couldn't have made a better decision.

"They're very different personalities, and both my husband and I have talked many times about how each of them wound up exactly where they should be," she said. "Penn State is perfect for Krystle, and Michigan is perfect for Lori."

While both sisters have found their niche, Cheryl said that she and her husband are now busy searching for the perfect spot in the stands at Big Tens.

"This is the first time we've ever faced this, so we haven't figured out exactly how yet," she said.

Their initial intention, Cheryl said, was to split their time evenly between each team's section in the stands.

And, if that doesn't work, there's always the back-up plan.

"I figure if we just yell 'Go Blue' we've got it all covered," she said.