Chicago, Ill. -- The Wheaton swimming and diving teams began their 2023-24 seasons on Saturday afternoon by heading into the Windy City to take part in the University of Chicago's quad meet alongside Illinois Institute of Technology and Olivet Nazarene University. The Thunder men's and women's squads faced off against the other three schools in a dual meet format, and their lone head-to-head victory of Saturday's action came when the Wheaton women defeated IIT by a score of 178-83. Today's competition featured multiple solid performances from the reigning CCIW champion Wheaton women's team, but it was freshman swimmer Tess Boyer who stole the show in her collegiate debut.

Boyer won the 200-yard backstroke event in impressive fashion, beating out 14 other swimmers with a time of 2:07.39, a mark that is good for sixth-fastest in all of Division III through this point of the season. The rookie also earned a second-placed finish in the 200 yard IM with a time stamp of 2:11.95, touching the wall just .89 seconds behind the winning UChicago competitor. Rounding out her eye-catching first feature for Wheaton, Boyer posted a time of 1:00.21 in the 100 yard backstroke to place fourth in the event.

Sophie Pelling began her senior campaign with a fifth-place finish in the 50 yard freestyle, .1 second off of her fourth-placed IIT counterpart. Katie Yonan posted her first top-five finish of the year, as well, coming in fourth in the 500-yard equivalent. Olivia Wiebe picked up a placement of sixth in the 200-yard butterfly competition.

The Wheaton women's team will return to action in two weeks' time as the Thunder head to Wisconsin to take on UW-Milwaukee in a dual meet.