Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- The Wheaton women's swimming team returned to the Pleasant Prairie RecPlex on Friday for the penultimate day of the 2025 CCIW Championships. While the Thunder's position in the team standings did not change as a result of tonight's action, there was no shortage of highlight performances and impressive results from the squad, as Wheaton picked up five event wins this evening. Another Thunder relay group emerged victorious to continue the team's strong form in this week's relay races, before Tess Boyer, Kara Grace Hess, Katie Yonan, and Savannah Jeffery all swam to first-place finishes to headline Friday's successful slate. Wheaton heads into Saturday's finale in third place in the seven-team standings with a total of 525 points. Carthage College leads the field on 578.5 points, while the reigning conference champion, Augustana College, currently has 569 points in second place. The Thunder are nailed on to finish in the top three of the standings, as fourth-place Illinois Wesleyan University sits behind them on a total of 298.5.

Tonight's finals session began with the lone relay event of Friday's program, the 200-yard medley competition. Wheaton faced a serious challenge in the race from an Augustana quartet, but Jeffery, Louise Adams, Boyer, and Yonan had just enough in the tank to see off their Vikings competitors, posting a combined time of 1:47.54 to complete the event only .10 second before the Augie group behind them. Wheaton won the 200 medley relay in both 2022 and 2023, and tonight's victory returned the title to the Thunder after an Illinois Wesleyan outfit captured it at last year's meet. 

Boyer then added to her ever-expanding medal collection from this week with another solo victory in the individual medley category, following up her win in the women's 200 event last night with the 400-yard title tonight. The sophomore finished first in the conference championship 400 IM for the second-consecutive year via a NCAA 'B Cut' time mark of 4:26.84, touching the wall nearly 14 seconds before her teammate Olivia Wiebe, who was tonight's runner-up. Boyer's mark on Friday was almost seven full seconds faster than her winning time in the event in 2024. (podium picture at left)

Wheaton's perfect start to Friday's schedule continued, as the sophomore Hess swam to a first-place finish in her 100-yard butterfly final. She registered a time of 58.11 to beat out the Augustana runner-up by .80 second and secure her first career CCIW winner's medal. (podium picture below at right)

It was then Yonan's turn to scoop up her first individual title of the week, and the senior did
so in an event that she has become quite familiar with winning, the 200-yard freestyle. Yonan completed a personal four-year sweep of the 200 free on Friday with a finals time of 1:52.80, the second-fastest performance of her four winning times in the event after last year's mark of 1:52.41 and 1.77 seconds ahead of the Vikings' second-place finisher this evening. With this victory, Yonan becomes the first women's swimmer in program history to win four-consecutive conference titles in the 200-yard freestyle and the first CCIW swimmer to do so since Carthage's Amanda Croix managed the feat between 2008-11. She will have the opportunity to complete another career sweep on Saturday in the 100-yard freestyle event. (podium picture below)
Relay winner Jeffery closed out the day's action by joining Hess on a first career CCIW solo victory when she raced past Augustana's two-time defending champion in the 100-yard backstroke to top the podium. The junior posted a time of 59.20 to get to the wall just .09 second before the Illinois Wesleyan runner-up and .10 ahead of the Augie veteran in a photo finish. (podium picture at right) 

Jeffery's win capped an impressive day of performances for the Wheaton women's squad, and the Thunder will be hoping for more of the same on Saturday as they prepare for the final day of the Championships. This year's meet concludes with another round of 10:30 AM prelims followed by event finals at 6 PM.