Milwaukee, Wis. -- Six days after beginning their 2025-26 seasons in Chicago, the Thunder swimming teams traveled north to another major Midwestern city to face the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the two programs' annual dual meet. The Division I Panthers won both the men's and women's meets by decisive margins on Friday night, but the competition provided valuable experience ahead of Wheaton's home-opening event next weekend. This evening's program saw multiple impressive performances from the Thunder squads, none more so than junior Tess Boyer's showing in the women's 400-yard IM race.

The 400 IM was the fifth competition on the schedule order in Friday's women's meet, and Boyer, the CCIW record-holder and a Second Team All-American in the event, once again showed her quality in the race, posting a time of 4:30.89 to finish in first place ahead of the Milwaukee runner-up by a 20-second margin. This mark is currently the second-fastest in the event in all of Division III women's swimming this season, as Boyer's time sits just .59 second behind a swimmer from Kenyon College in the national rankings. 

The reigning CCIW Women's Swimming Student-Athlete of the Week also secured a pair of second-place showings this evening, logging a time of 54.27 in the 100-yard freestyle and swimming a 25.40 split on the lead-off leg of the women's 200-yard freestyle relay. Boyer was joined by Aubrey Swanson, Rebecca Darter, and Savannah Jeffery, with Swanson clocking the fastest split of the quartet on a 24.71 time to go towards the group's combined mark of 1:41.28, less than three seconds slower than the Panthers' A team.

Allison Henschel registered a time of 11:00.13 in her 1000-yard freestyle swim to edge out her competing Milwaukee swimmer by 1.20 seconds. Swanson then came in second in the women's 200 free via a time of 2:05.06, touching the wall one second ahead of Kate Zurowski. 

 

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The final event of the night was a successful one for the Thunder men's team, as the Wheaton quartet of Jac Cummings, Zachary Kohoutek, Kaden Gannon, and Ben Coley combined to earn a time of 1:28.56 in the 200-yard freestyle relay. This mark was 1.15 seconds faster than Milwaukee's B team, while the Panthers' A group suffered disqualification due to an early take-off on the anchor leg. 

Cummings began his evening in the pool with a third-place showing in the men's 200 free, registering a count of 1:47.94 as the fastest of the four competing Thunder swimmers. Relay teammate Kohoutek then grabbed a third-place finish of his own in the next event, the 50-yard freestyle, via a time of 22.51, completing the race .37 second behind the Panthers' winner. Coley continued his strong start to the season with a third-place standing and a new personal best in the men's 100-yard butterfly competition via a mark of 53.28. The junior also swam the fastest split of the aforementioned freestyle relay group on a 21.80 line.

Isaac Eilmes then secured the lone individual event win of the night for the Wheaton men's squad in the 500-yard freestyle swim. The Colorado native posted a time mark of 4:53.86 to win the race by a convincing 9.1-second margin as the only swimmer to complete the event in under five minutes.

After kicking off their new season schedules with consecutive road trips, the Thunder swimming & diving teams will compete inside Lederhouse Natatorium for the first time this fall on November 8th, as Wheaton welcomes Calvin University for another annual non-conference dual meet. The competition between the Thunder and the Knights is set to begin at 1:00 PM next Saturday.