Greensboro, N.C. -- Tess Boyer's decorated sophomore season came to an end this morning, as the Wheaton swimmer returned to the Greensboro Aquatic Center for her third-consecutive day of competition at this year's NCAA Championships. The final event on Boyer's schedule this week was the women's 200-yard butterfly, and she placed 24th in Friday's 41-swimmer prelim field to close out her first appearance at the national championships. The Kansas native had already achieved significant milestones before today's race as the first Wheaton women's swimmer in six years to compete in the NCAA meet and the lone female swimming student-athlete from the CCIW to participate at Nationals this season. Boyer followed up Thursday's success in which she set a new conference record in the women's 400-yard IM and earned honorable mention All-America recognition with another experience-building performance this morning that will set her up for next year's campaign.

Boyer (pictured at right on NCAA Championships platform) entered today's competition in a similar situation as yesterday's 400 IM, being the two-time reigning conference champion in the event and owning the second-fastest swim in program history. Her 200 fly seed time of 2:04.53 at this year's national meet is behind only former All-American and national champion Kirsty Nitz's 2015 mark of 1:59.62 among all Thunder women's swimmers. Boyer did not quite manage to match her season-high time in the event in this morning's prelim, posting a mark of 2:05.62 on Friday, but she did improve on her seeding placement in the field, jumping from 27th position coming into today's race to 24th in the field of 41 competitors following the preliminary round. 
 
After her impressive debut on the big stage this week, the sophomore will join the rest of her Thunder teammates in the offseason program and can finally take time to reflect on a lengthy and medal-laden second year at Wheaton while also looking forward to more success in the future.