The men’s swim and dive team at Queens University is still in great position to win a conference title at the ASUN Championship this weekend. The Royals enter Saturday’s competition in second place.
A two-way competition for the conference crown is set to unfold over the next 48 hours.
However, regardless of how things shake out, the highlight of the college swimming event so far is actually a lowlight. An unusual scene occurred during one of the events on Friday that led to a hilarious dialogue between the on-air broadcast analysts.
Queens currently trails Florida Atlantic by 14.5 points in the standings but not for lack of effort by its resilient 200-yard freestyle relay team. It overcame an awkward blunder to pull out a victory.
The embarrassing incident took place during the second preliminary heat. The Royals were stroke-for-stroke with the Owls during the third leg of the relay event. Its second-to-last swimmer trailed FAU by mere milliseconds and went to make his final turn for the final stretch of the four-lap swim.
In that moment, Queens’ final leg swimmer stepped onto the blocks and got in position to dive. Except he was not supposed to dive — yet. There was still a down-and-back to go but nobody stopped him!
Thus, as the third-leg swimmer approached the wall, his successor jumped into the pool right on top of him even though it was not his turn to swim. One announcer thought he fell. The other was quick to set the record straight about his too-early dive and corrected her on-air counterpart with a sharp tone.
A tier commentary for A tier drama at the ASUN Championships. pic.twitter.com/88T2NIYqtI
— Braden Keith (@Braden_Keith) February 22, 2025
Fortunately, the collision was minimal and the third-leg swimmer was able to keep his pace. And if I am reading the results correctly, the Royals actually came back to win the second heat of the 200-meter freestyle relay prelims! The too-early swimmer must’ve climbed back out of the pool and used his mistake as rocket fuel. A major blunder ultimately became irrelevant but that doesn’t make it any less funny!