Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- On the back of Wednesday night's 800-yard freestyle relay opener, the Wheaton men's swim team returned to the Pleasant Prairie RecPlex pool for day two of the CCIW Swimming Championships on Thursday. The reigning conference champion Augustana College completed a clean sweep of the five events during this evening's finals, while the Thunder earned three runner-up finishes across the relay and solo competitions. Wheaton is currently in third place in the team standings heading into Friday's schedule.

With all seven CCIW squads now officially competing in the meet, the updated team standings through Thursday's program are as follows: Augustana holds a 65-point lead atop the pile with a total score of 403, with Carthage College in second on 338. The Orange and Blue are right behind their Wisconsin rivals on a tally of 335 points, and there is a notable gap between the Thunder and the rest of the participating programs. Carroll University sits in fourth place with a two-day total of 107, while Illinois Wesleyan University is currently in fifth with 70 points. Millikin University is in sixth place on a 58 point measure, and North Central College brings up the rear with eight points.

The Vikings began tonight's finals by capturing their third conference title in the last four seasons in the 200-yard freestyle relay, outperforming their incoming seed time by nearly three seconds to win the race with an impressive combined mark of 1:21.91. The Wheaton quartet of Jac Cummings, Kaden Gannon, Zachary Kohoutek, and Ben Coley logged a total time of 1:23.79 to secure a comfortable second-place standing in the event.

Cummings then earned a bronze medal in the first solo swim of the evening, the 50-yard freestyle. The sophomore posted a finals time of 21.07 seconds to place third behind two Augie counterparts. Isaac Eilmes claimed Wheaton's lone individual runner-up finish on Thursday in the 500-yard edition thanks to a career-best 4:38.84 performance. Isaac Chambers topped the field in the consolation final of the men's 200-yard IM on a 2:00.35 line, while Nick John and David Stevenson placed sixth and seventh, respectively, in the event's championship final.

Augustana ended the night the same way it began, with a relay victory, this time sealing its second-straight title in the 400-yard medley. The experienced Vikings quartet bettered their seed time by 7.5 seconds on Thursday to edge the Wheaton group in second place by a razor-thin .57 seconds margin. Cummings, John, Coley, and Kohoutek put in their best showing of the year with a 3:21.96 finals time but came up just short of the top spot on the podium in a competitive battle.

After some noteworthy performances and results on day two, the Thunder will try to overtake the Firebirds during Friday's program, with event prelims set to begin at 10:30 AM and finals starting at 6 PM.