Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- The Wheaton men's swimming team and its six fellow conference programs returned to the pool in Wisconsin on Friday for the third day of the 2025 CCIW Swimming & Diving Championships. The Thunder men's squad was displaced from the first-place perch in the team standings that it enjoyed over the previous two days this evening, but it still put in an impressive showing, highlighted by two individual title wins from a pair of freshman swimmers. Jed Ritchie's victory in the 400-yard IM and Jac Cummings' triumph in the 100-yard backstroke headlined Friday's action in the Thunder camp, and there was also a competitive second-place finish in the relay race of the day. With one full day of competition remaining at this year's Championships, Wheaton is third in the standings with a total of 586 points. The reigning champion, Augustana College, is currently in first place on 651 points, while Carthage College sits between the two in second with a tally of 615. The Thunder are assured of another top-three placement at this week's meet, as fourth-place Carroll University trails Wheaton by a sizable 419 points heading into the final day.

Only one relay swim was held on Friday, as this evening's finals began with the 200-yard medley event. A dramatic twist occurred in the race as Augustana's talented quartet was disqualified, leaving the door open for Carthage and Wheaton to take advantage of the error and top the podium. These two teams went stroke-for-stroke and the race came down to the wire, but the Firebirds' foursome eventually prevailed by a margin of less than one second. The Thunder's group of Cummings, Isaac Chambers, Josh Elsen, and Ben Coley posted a combined time of 1:32.93, just shy of their Carthage rivals' effort of 1:32 flat. But 30 points added to Wheaton's total score and a runner-up medal still represented a strong performance from the four-man outfit.

The first solo event of tonight's program brought more success for the Orange and Blue, as Ritchie went one better than his second-place swim on Thursday to claim his first CCIW title. The rookie registered a mark of 4:03.08 in the men's 400-yard IM to complete the event sweep for Wheaton after Tess Boyer finished first in the women's race and keep the crown within the program following Isaac Eilmes' win in the 400 last year. Eilmes came in second just behind Ritchie this evening with a time of 4:04.81, an improvement of nearly two seconds on his winning time mark from 2024. 

Coley swam to a third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle via a time of 1:41.01, touching the wall just .29 second behind the Augustana runner-up and 1.42 seconds ahead of the Carthage competitor in fourth. Relay teammate Chambers then contributed 14 more points to the Thunder's tally by placing fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke, while David Stevenson won the event's consolation final by a razor-thin margin of .04 second.

The last race of the night was the 100-yard backstroke, and this event also saw a first-time winner from Wheaton, as the Georgia-native Cummings posted a finals time of 51.18 seconds to top the eight-swimmer field by a .33-second margin and earn his first conference medal. His win completed another event sweep for the Thunder, as it followed Savannah Jeffery's victory in the women's edition of the 100 back.

This year's meet will conclude inside the Pleasant Prairie RecPlex on Saturday night with another 6 PM round of finals. While overhauling the two-time defending champions to capture a first conference crown since 2014 will be a difficult task, the Wheaton men's team will be looking forward to another strong day in the pool where more individual and collective success awaits.