Wheaton, Ill. -- After spending last week out of the pool for the Thanksgiving holiday, the Thunder swim teams returned to competition this weekend to host their annual Wheaton Invitational. Wheaton welcomed seven visiting programs to Lederhouse Natatorium on Friday for the first day of swimming action after the Thunder diving teams opened the invite on Thursday evening. Following tonight's finals, the Wheaton men's squad is currently in second place out of the eight teams having earned 369 points. Grove City College leads the way heading into Saturday's slate with a tally of 430 points, while UW-Stevens Point sits in third place on 357. The Thunder men were led by freshman Jed Ritchie on Friday, who earned a pair of solo event wins in his invitational debut.

Ritchie secured the first of his two individual victories tonight in the men's 500 yard freestyle via a time of 4:39.54, narrowly beating teammate Isaac Eilmes to the wall by .88 second. The rookie then topped his A final field in the 200 yard butterfly with a new CCIW-best mark of 1:52.72, touching the tape more than a second ahead of the Grove City runner-up.

Ben Coley joined Eilmes on a second-place finish tonight via his mark of 46.30 in the 100 yard freestyle, while Kaden Gannon placed first in the B final of the same event at a 48.24 pace.

David Stevenson swam to a third-place finish in the 100 yard breaststroke, posting a time of 58.62, and also won his 200 yard IM B final with a mark of 1:58.44. Jac Cummings and Ben Fox placed third and fourth, respectively, in the A final of the 200 yard backstroke with time marks of 1:55.17 and 1:56.45.

Philip Holst captured first place in the B final of the men's 200 fly thanks to a 2:01.19 time.

Cummings, Ritchie, and Coley then teamed up with Josh Elsen to earn a third-place finish in the last event of the night, the 400 yard medley relay. The Wheaton quartet posted a combined time of 3:28.77, completing the race .30 second faster than the Olivet Nazarene group in fourth.

The Thunder men's team will return to the pool for the final time in 2024 on Saturday to close out this year's invitational. Tomorrow's action is set to begin with a 10 AM round of prelims followed by event finals that are scheduled to start at 5 PM.