Greensboro, N.C. -- Nearly a month after she concluded her impressive showing at the 2025 CCIW Swimming & Diving Championships, Wheaton's Tess Boyer finally began her three-day stay at this year's NCAA Division III Championships in North Carolina. Boyer is the first Wheaton women's swimmer to compete at the NCAA Championships since 2019 and the only female swimmer from the CCIW to qualify for this year's national meet. The sophomore swam the first of three events that she is slated to take part in this week on Wednesday morning, the women's 200-yard individual medley. Boyer earned a 17th-place finish in the 55-swimmer prelim field this morning and posted a lifetime-best time mark to begin her week at the national championships in strong fashion.

The Kansas native won the CCIW title in the women's 200-yard IM this year with a personal-best time of 2:05.65, but she flew past this mark with a rapid 2:04.52 this morning to set a new lifetime-best standard and move up to fourth place in program history in the event. Boyer's new time is the fastest a Thunder women's swimmer has completed the 200 IM since Katie Deysher posted a mark of 2:04.42 in 2015. Boyer came into this week's event seeded 30th in the field based on qualifying times, but she surpassed expectations to move up 13 spots in the preliminary competition.

The sophomore missed out by a razor-thin margin on a Top 16 finish that would have seen her advance to tonight's finals and earn an honorable mention All-America recognition, touching the wall just .05 second behind the 16th-placed Tufts competitor. Boyer finished .03 second ahead of a fellow sophomore from NYU in 18th place.

Boyer will return to the pool on Thursday morning for the second of her three races across three-consecutive days. Next up for the CCIW Women's Swimming Student-Athlete of the Meet is the women's 400-yard IM, another event in which she holds the conference crown. 37 women are scheduled to take part in tomorrow's 400 IM, and Boyer comes into the event with a seeding of 21st. This race is the first event on tomorrow's schedule, with Boyer's preliminary set to take place at approximately 10 AM Eastern/9 AM Central Time on Thursday.