Chicago, Ill. -- After months of offseason preparation and practice, the Thunder swimming and diving teams finally returned to the pool on Saturday for a taste of competitive action, as Wheaton began the 2025-26 season by traveling into the Windy City. Today's multi-team event at the University of Chicago was originally intended to be a quad meet, but Olivet Nazarene University dropped out of the competition, so it was reformatted as the Chicagoland Triangular, with the hosting Maroons and the Illinois Institute of Technology joining Wheaton for the meet. The event was scored as three separate dual meets on both the men's and women's side, and UChicago, ranked fourth in Division III men's swimming in this month's CSCAA Top 25 poll and ninth in the country in women's swimming, logged four total victories on the day. The Wheaton women's squad topped IIT by a score of 177-99 for the Thunder's lone team win, as the IIT men edged out Wheaton, 154-135, in a competitive head-to-head showing.
The Thunder women's team began today's program of events with a statement performance, as
Savannah Jeffery,
Lydia Hansen,
Tess Boyer, and
Aubrey Swanson teamed up to claim first place in the women's 200-yard medley relay. The quartet, consisting of swimmers from all four academic years, posted a combined mark of 1:49.61 to improve on their listed seed time by more than seven seconds and beat the second-placed UChicago team to the wall by 1.14 seconds.
Boyer (
pictured right) was one of three individual event winners for Wheaton this afternoon, as the reigning CCIW Women's Student-Athlete of the Championships and second team All-American
began her junior campaign with two solo victories. The Kansas native placed first in the 200-yard breaststroke race via a time of 2:24.23, winning the event by a mammoth 12.1-second margin, before also topping her 200 IM field courtesy of a 2:08.41 line, 5.75 seconds faster than the Maroons' runner-up.
Boyer's relay teammate Hansen registered a solo event win in her first collegiate meet by coming in first place in the women's 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:08.98, touching the wall 3.61 seconds before the IIT swimmer immediately behind her. Senior swimmer
Olivia Wiebe kicked off her final collegiate season with a victory in the women's 200-yard backstroke swim, topping the field with a 2:15.29 measure to win the event by 2.26 seconds.
Another Wheaton rookie,
Allison Henschel, earned a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle, completing the event just .52 second behind the UChicago winner on a 5:26.80 time and also placed fourth in the nine-swimmer 200-yard freestyle field in a strong collegiate debut. Jeffery followed up her relay victory with a third-place showing in the 100-yard backstroke race. Fellow senior
Anna Lee came in third in the 200-yard butterfly, while Swanson placed fourth in the 50 free.
Isabelle Fitzpatrick,
Renata Marantz, and
Kate Tukiendorf were the three Thunder women's divers who took part in Saturday's meet, and Marantz and Fitzpatrick earned third-place finishes in the 1-meter and 3-meter events, respectively, with scores of 134.10 and 120.75.
Saturday's curtain-raiser was bookended by a pair of fourth-place finishes for the Wheaton men's team in the relay events. Jac Cummings, Nick John, Ben Coley, and Kaden Gannon combined to post a time of 1:36.44 in the men's 200-yard medley relay to better their seed time by nearly eight seconds. The final event of today's slate, the 400-yard freestyle relay, saw Cummings, Coley, Gannon, and Sam Yonan register a combined mark of 3:15.06.
Coley enjoyed a strong start to his junior campaign this afternoon, finishing third in the 11-swimmer 200-yard freestyle via a time of 1:47.28 and fifth in the 15-man 100 free on a 48.35 count. Isaac Eilmes earned three top-five finishes on Saturday. The junior came in second in the men's 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:02.67 before placing fourth in the 200-yard backstroke on a mark of 2:04.32. Eilmes concluded his day in the water with a fifth-placed showing in the 200 yard IM, registering a time of 2:03.50.
Cummings placed fourth in the men's 100-yard backstroke courtesy of a 53.47 time and sixth in the 16-swimmer 50-yard freestyle field with a 22.10 mark. Jed Ritchie earned a runner-up placement in the 500 free, completing the event in just under five minutes on a 4:59.36 line.
Josiah Ferguson was the only men's diver for Wheaton to take part in both the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions on Saturday, and the sophomore finished fifth in each field from scores of 129.10 and 113.40, respectively.
With the first competition of 2025-26 under their belts, the Wheaton teams will next be in action on Friday, October 31st. The Thunder squads will travel to Division I program UW-Milwaukee for their annual dual meet against the Panthers.
