Bourbonnais, Ill. -- The Wheaton swim teams returned to the pool on Saturday afternoon at Olivet Nazarene University to take part in the Tigers' Tri Invitational along with Aquinas College. While the Thunder squads fell to the hosting Tigers, they both defeated Aquinas in the double-dual event, and there were a number of strong individual showings for Wheaton throughout the day.
Sophie Pelling claimed the lone event win for the Wheaton women's squad on Saturday by topping the field in her 50 yard freestyle race. Pelling also earned a second-place standing as a part of the Thunder's most successful relay team in the women's 400 yard freestyle, combining with
Scottie McKeaney,
Katie Yonan, and
Abby Pardridge to finish the race exactly one second behind the winning ONU quartet.
Madison Harris placed second in the first solo women's event of the day - the 1650 yard freestyle.
Lily Foung joined Harris in registering a runner-up finish by coming in second in her 200 yard breaststroke event. Yonan then came in second place in the 500 yard freestyle event to round off the run of top-two placements for Wheaton on the women's side.
Not for the first time this season, the Wheaton men's squad posted solid performances in the relay events. The Thunder men began the day's action with a second-placed finish in the 400 yard medley. AJ Staiti, Andrew Rogers, Anthony Fitzgerald, and Abe Plimpton joined up to claim the runner-up spot in the seven-team field. Then in the final event of the competition, Harrison Smith replaced Rogers and the resulting Wheaton quartet captured first place in the 400 yard freestyle relay.
Smith had a successful individual day as well, winning his 100 yard butterfly race as one of three Wheaton swimmers to place in the top four of the event. The senior also earned a second-place standing in the 1650 yard freestyle, touching the wall a comfortable 27 seconds before his nearest challengers. Relay teammate Anthony Fitzgerald picked up two more individual race wins on Saturday to continue his strong season. He first won the 100 yard breaststroke as the only competitor to finish the race in less than a minute before later topping the field in his 400 yard IM competition.
Andrew Rogers also got to enjoy a solo event win today, claiming first place in the 200 yard breaststroke race, edging out his ONU counterpart by .09 seconds. Connor Davis earned a pair of second-place finishes in the 200 yard freestyle and 200 yard backstroke events.
The Thunder teams will next be in action on Saturday the 28th when they host Augustana in their final home dual meet of the season.
