Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- After three days full of competition and jockeying for position in the team standings, the 2024 CCIW Swimming & Diving Championships concluded on Saturday night inside the Pleasant Prairie RecPlex. When all was said and done, the Wheaton women's swim team was unable to retain the conference title it won in 2023 due to a high-powered performance from the Augustana Vikings, who amassed an impressive 862.5 points this weekend to top the conference field. But the Thunder were able to reclaim second place after Friday's outcomes and eventually ended the Championships with a 645-point total to finish ahead of third-placed Carthage on 611. The 2023-24 swimming season has now concluded, and Wheaton will head into its offseason routine until it resumes competition in the fall of this year.

Scottie McKeaney began Saturday's schedule with a fourth-place showing in the 20-woman 1650-yard freestyle field. The sophomore registered a time mark of 18:01.68 and completed the lengthy event nine seconds ahead of the nearest Carthage challenger in fifth. Emma Murphree then won the B Final of her 200-yard backstroke swim via a time of 2:15.61. 

Katie Yonan captured the first of two solo title wins for the Thunder women on Saturday, topping the field in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 51.89 seconds. This victory continued Yonan's hot streak in the event, marking her third-consecutive 100 free final win at the conference championships and her fastest time mark yet in this race. The junior (pictured at left) is the fourth woman in CCIW history to capture the 100 freestyle title three years in a row and the first to do so since Wheaton's Brooke Barnes accomplished the feat in 2019.

    Tess Boyer then secured Wheaton's second individual title of the night in the women's 200-yard butterfly race. The freshman (pictured at right) earned her second solo victory of the weekend courtesy of a finals time of 2:11.69, winning the event by a comfortable 3.65-second margin. Fellow underclassman Olivia Wiebe came in third place in the same field to earn All-CCIW designation. 

    While Augustana had already secured the conference trophy by the time the final event of the weekend came around, the Thunder also got to end the Championships on a note of celebration, as their A Final quartet of McKeaney, Pelling, Carolyn Bubar, and Yonan swam to a first-placed finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay for the second-consecutive year (podium picture below). 
 
Upon the conclusion of Saturday's finals, senior Sophie Pelling was awarded the CCIW Elite 26 honor for academic and athletic achievement as one of two women's All-Conference recipients this weekend with the highest GPA.