Milwaukee, WI, November 14, 2014 – The Wheaton College Thunder took a trip to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Klotsche Natatorium, only to be shut down on both the women’s and men’s sides. The Wheaton College Thunder women fell to the UW-Milwaukee Panthers 134-71, while the Thunder men fell to the Panthers 137 – 65.
Women’s Meet
The first place finishes were fairly evenly split between both teams over the course of the meet, with UW-Milwaukee women earning six event wins to Wheaton’s five. However, the disparity in the depth between these two teams came to light, as the UW-Milwaukee Panthers finished second, third and fourth in four of Wheaton’s five wins.
Starting off the night in the women’s 200y medley relay were two speedy teams from the Panthers, with their “B” team out touching “A” 1:50.38 to 1:50.53. Freshman Samantha Stelpflug then immediately went on to win the 1000y freestyle in a time of 10:46.60. The first win for Wheaton came in the 200y freestyle by junior Kirsty Nitz topping the field with her swift time of 1:57.58. However, UW-Milwaukee gave a loud answer right back, as they went 1-4 in the 50y freestyle. led by Anna Yontz (senior) in her first place time of 24.26.
The Wheaton women would not be entirely denied, as they went 1-2 in the 400y IM event, won by freshman Kayla Robinson (4:38.28), followed in second by teammate, junior Katie Deysher (4:40.23). The Thunder also won the women’s 100y butterfly with Kirsty Nitz’s time of 56.83 – a time which led the field by over five seconds.
However, UW-Milwaukee would go on to win the 100y backstroke (Kady Ruemmele, 1:00.71), as well as the 500y freestyle (Madeline Nelson, 5:23.92) and the 200y free relay (1:41.28) to seal the solid win against the Thunder women.
Men’s Meet
The men’s side saw more first place finishes from UW-Milwaukee , as the Panthers came away with a solid nine individual wins, including 200y medley relay (1:35.46), the 400y IM (junior Nic Halverson, 4:16.73), and the 100y freestyle (junior Erik Wahlgren, 48.39).
The Panthers also claimed several point-placing finishes within multiple events over the course of the night. These included the men’s 1000 freestyle, where junior Tim Halverson (9:50.58) and Erik Wahlgren (10:04.34) went 1-2, as well as the men’s 200y freestyle, where the first through fourth place spots were swept by Panther swimmers Kenny Stelpflug (1:44.16), Nick Menninga (1:46.38), Ryan Finke (1:48.33), and Tanner Nimke (1:48.73).
Wheaton College was not totally shut out, as they earned individual event wins in the 100y butterfly (freshman Chris Dingfield, 53.33) and the 100y backstroke (freshman Addison Coen, 57.30). However, it simply was not enough to keep up with the utter domination exhibited by the UW-Milwaukee men throughout the night.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men and women next travel to Iowa for the Iowa Hawkeye Invitational slated to begin December 5th. The Wheaton University squads travel to the University of Chicago invite for their next meet, which is scheduled to begin November 21st.