By Hannah Bartlebaugh, Staff Writer
On Feb. 21, the Wheaton College women’s swimming and diving team won its 27th College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) championship in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. This championship title is both a CCIW and a Wheaton athletics record. The meet also saw several individual accolades for Wheaton swimmers, including junior biochemistry major Tess Boyer, who won several races and earned her second consecutive CCIW Women’s Swimming Student-Athlete of the Meet honor.
The diving portion of the championship took place the weekend prior at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis. Sophomore health science major Lara Stamp won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving titles, becoming the first Wheaton diver since 2011 to secure both titles and the first female diver in school history to accomplish the feat. She also received her second consecutive CCIW Women’s Diving Student-Athlete of the Meet award. Stamp said she focused more on having fun at the meet than on winning specific titles. “It was like, oh, if I have a good meet, like I probably will get both titles,” she said. “But I wasn’t checking it or thinking about it.”
With the diving competition complete, the swimmers headed to Pleasant Prairie. Wheaton remained in the lead throughout the four-day competition, although the two-time defending champions, Augustana College, stayed close behind. On the final day of competition, the championship came down to the last race.
The women’s 400-yard freestyle relay team of senior applied health science major Louise Adams, junior applied health science major Rebecca Darter, senior history major Olivia Wiebe and senior business and economics major Savannah Jeffrey placed first in their race. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of sophomore communication major Aubrey Swanson, freshman business and economics and French major Allison Henschel, freshman psychology major Kate Zurowski and Tess Boyer placed second behind Augustana.
At the end of the meet, the Thunder came away with the victory by one point — the narrowest margin in CCIW conference championship history.
Jeffery, who swam on the winning relay team, said that while the relay was stressful for her, it was a special experience for her because the team was mostly seniors. “It was so fun knowing that whatever happened, I was so proud of the girls with me,” Jeffrey said.
Lydia Hansen, a freshman engineering major who won the First-Year CCIW Student-Athlete of the Meet, called the moment Wheaton won “surreal.”
“When we came in clutch with the one-point win over Augustana, we screamed with ecstasy as the realization hit,” she said. “We had won.”
Head coach Meghan Ayers and the rest of the team’s coaching staff received their second Coaching Staff of the Year award, the first coming in 2023. Ayers said she was proud of the accomplishment and highlighted the role of her assistant coaching staff. “It really was a team effort, and that’s absolutely a team effort in coaching all the athletes,” she said.
