Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- After Wednesday's slate saw four diving competitions and two relay races take place, the conference swimming championships well and truly began on Thursday inside the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex. The Wheaton men's team did not have any first-place finishers on day two of this year's meet, but the Thunder still enjoyed multiple impressive performances tonight and did just enough to maintain their early lead atop the team standings. Wheaton is currently in first place in the seven-team field with a total of 366 points and leads the defending conference champions from Augustana College by just one point. Carthage College is close behind, as well, on 358, but there is a large gap to fourth place where Carroll University sits with 101 points.
Thursday's event program began with the 200-yard freestyle relays, and the competing Thunder quartet finished third in the race after Carthage and Augustana on a combined mark of 1:24.34, 1.44 seconds behind the victorious Firebirds' team's time.
Freshman
Jed Ritchie earned All-Conference status in his first-ever swim at the Championships when he placed second in the men's 500-yard freestyle. The Pennsylvania native registered a time of 4:38.13 to claim the runner-up position, and teammate
Isaac Eilmes was fourth place in the same race via a time of 4:39.03.
(podium picture at right) 
It was then another rookie's turn to collect All-Conference recognition, as
Jac Cummings swam to a third-place finish in the 50-yard free by way of a 21.21 mark.
Ben Coley came in fifth in the event on a 21.33 pace.
(podium picture below)
The Wheaton men's squad closed out the day's proceedings with another third-placed relay effort, this time in the 400-yard medley competition, as Augie and Carthage went one-two to close the gap on the Thunder at the top of the team standings.
Wheaton will return to the pool for Day 3 of the Championships with a 10:30 AM prelim slate on Friday morning, while the next round of event finals are scheduled to start at approximately 6 PM.
