Alabama DQ Gets Cal’s 400 Medley Relay Into A Final

2017 MEN’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

A disqualification to Alabama bumped California’s 400 medley relay into the A final after the Golden Bears swam an alternate lineup in prelims.

Alabama qualified 6th overall this morning in 3:04.35, but was DQ’d for a violation on the butterfly leg. Meet announcers indicated flyer Luke Kaliszak wasn’t turned toward his stomach coming off a wall.

It was nearly a disaster for Cal, who had A final IMer Matt Josa disqualified earlier in the meet, letting Texas’s Jon Roberts into the A final. The Bears were 2nd in this relay a year ago and seem very likely to move up tonight, meaning a 9th-place finish in prelims could have cost in the ballpark of 16 points. They’re still in tough shape to catch Texas, but Alabama’s DQ ensures the Bears can score big points in that relay tonight.

Cal swam without Olympic champ Ryan Murphy this morning, and backstroker Quah Zheng Wen was only 46.25 – well slower than Murphy’s lifetime-best of 43.49. Cal could also add in Josa on fly tonight to take a shot at a top-3 finish or better.

In another interesting DQ quirk, Arizona was bumped up to 16th place for the second time this morning. The Wildcats also nabbed a bonus scoring swim in the 200 free relay thanks to a DQ from USC.

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Lane 4
7 years ago

GO MISSOU!!

coach
7 years ago

I hate that call. I hope it was obvious, and the dude pushed off and kicked on his back – which I doubt happened. This isn’t trying to sneak in an extra fly kick or two off a breast wall.

CARTMAN
Reply to  coach
7 years ago

It was fairly obvious. Not quite a Lochte turn but clearly visible on camera. He is mainly a backstroker so there might have been something to that strategy.

Joel Lin
7 years ago

Lucky Bears.

That was a foolish gambit…this meet is too fast, too deep to assume anything. I’m sure the Bears will swim angry tonite. Outside smoke, baby.

EmZee
Reply to  Joel Lin
7 years ago

Not sure anyone was expecting the 400MR to be over a second faster in prelims, and Dave was probably confident in his prelims group getting a good spot. Just so happened they needed a little luck to push them in. I’m sure a ton of teams are going to put up some more A-relay guys for their prelims tomorrow after seeing how much of a tear everyone was on today.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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