Wheaton Invitational Site/Results

Wheaton, Ill. - Lauren Jurgens broke a 25-year old record as the Wheaton College men's and women's swim teams are in fourth and third place respectively after the first day of the Wheaton Invitational on Friday.

On the women's side, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point leads with 517 points. The Pointers are followed by Washington-Mo. University (349), Wheaton (345), Hope College (329), University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (149), College of DuPage (14) and North Central College (6).

Wheaton's top women's finisher was Lauren Jurgens, who won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:00.81. Jurgens beat the Wheaton school record that had stood for 25 seasons by over two full seconds and is a lock for making the NCAAs with her winning time. Linda Chambers held the previous record with a time of 5:03.04.

The Thunder women also had four runner-up finishes on the day, including Kelsey Craggett in the 200-yard IM (2:13.05) and Liz Hartman in the 100-yard breaststroke by a margin of only 0.09 seconds (1:07.30). The 200-yard freestyle relay (1:37.94) and 400-yard medley relay (4:01.66) also finished second.

Noelle Hoffer took third place in the 200-yard backstroke (2:10.30) to round out the top Wheaton finishers.

On the men's side, Hope lead with 468 points. Wisconsin-Stevens Point follows with 449 points, Washington with 377, Wheaton with 287, Wisconsin-Whitewater with 151 and DuPage with 46.

Jonathan Nitz defended his title in the 100-yard breaststroke from last season with a time of 57.05 to lead the Thunder men. Preston Conger took third place in the 100-yard breaststroke (58.54). He reached an NCAA B cut in the morning preliminaries by finishing second in 58.38, which dropped two full seconds from his time last season.

The 400-yard medley relay also took third place in a time of 3:30.13.

Day two wraps up on Saturday with prelims at 10:00 AM and finals at 5:00 PM.