Pleasant Prairie, Wis. -- After six total days of competition stretching back to last Friday, the 2026 CCIW Swimming & Diving Championships finally concluded in Wisconsin on Saturday evening. This year's conference meet went down in the record books, as the title race on the women's side was decided by an historically narrow margin, with Wheaton pipping Augustana College to the trophy by a single point. In the men's field, the Augustana juggernaut rolled on, with the Vikings scooping up their fourth-consecutive CCIW title. The Thunder men's team successfully defended the second-place position it earned on Friday and eventually secured the program's fourth runner-up finish at the conference championships in the last five years.
The final team standings from this week's competition following Saturday's concluding slate of events read as follows:
1) Augustana College - 1036,
2) Wheaton College - 876,
3) Carthage College - 756,
4) Illinois Wesleyan University - 213,
5) Carroll University - 199,
6) Millikin University - 160
, 7) North Central College - 23.
The Thunder's 876 point total marks one of the best-ever returns for the program at the conference championships and would have been enough to win the title at four of the past five CCIW meets. Similarly, Augie's winning tally of 1036 is the most points accrued by a conference champion in the men's meet since Carthage's 1052.5 mark in 2018.
Wheaton's final session at the championships was highlighted by
Isaac Eilmes, who captured his second-consecutive conference title in the men's 1650-yard freestyle. The junior posted a lifetime-best finals mark of 15:53.60 in Saturday's first event to shave a whopping 18.65 seconds off of his seed time and registered the new leading 1000 yard split in the race in CCIW history. Eilmes touched the wall more than 26 seconds before the competition's runner-up from Illinois Wesleyan to underscore his status as the best in the conference in the event. Freshman teammate
Jack Haidl turned in a season-best performance of his own in the 1650 to finish third with a time mark of 16:24.66. (
medal podium ceremony pictured at right)
Jac Cummings earned runner-up status in the next competition, the 200-yard backstroke. The sophomore and 100 back champion swam a 1:52.75 line to finish the race one second behind the favored Augustana winner and just .08 second ahead of another Vikings challenger in third.
The 100-yard freestyle saw a 3-4-5 placement on the podium for Wheaton, as
Ben Coley,
Zachary Kohoutek, and
Sam Yonan ended up side-by-side in that order, with the latter two posting season-best times in the event.
Nick John came in fourth in the 200-yard breaststroke and
Isaac Chambers won the consolation final of the event, before
Jed Ritchie and
Lucas Edwards placed third and fourth, respectively, in the 200-yard butterfly championship final.
The Thunder men closed out their four-day stay at the meet with another second-place finish in a relay race, as Cummings, Kohoutek, Yonan, and Coley combined for a 3:04.50 effort in the 400-yard freestyle.
After putting in a high-caliber performance at this year's Championships to wrap up its season schedule, the Wheaton men's team will now head into the offseason and slowly begin working towards the 2026-27 campaign that will begin in October.
