After 2 seasons at Fresno State, Zofia Niemczak will transfer to the University of Utah for her senior season.
Niemczak, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was the 2018 Mountain West Conference Newcomer of the Year and Fresno State’s Most Valuable Swimmer as a freshman. Niemczak competes for Poland in international competition, and like many Polish swimmers training in the United States’ collegiate system, she sat out the 2019-2020 season to prepare for the Olympic Games.
In 2019, her last season at Fresno State, Niemczak won a Mountain West title in the 200 fly, swimming a 1:58.34 to finish almost a second ahead of Wyoming sophomore Hannah McLean-Leonard. A year earlier, as a freshman, Niemczak finished 3rd in the 200 fly in 1:58.66.
That effort earned her Mountain West Conference Newcomer of the Year honors, scoring 57 individual points for the Bulldogs in her first collegiate campaign. As a sophomore, that jumped to 79 individual points as part of a 5th-place team finish for Fresno State. The Bulldogs slid to 6th place in 2020, 20.5 points behind Colorado State for 5th place and 65.5 points behind UNLV for 4th place.
Best Times in Yards:
- 200 free – 1:48.55
- 500 free – 4:49.21
- 100 fly – 54.02
- 200 fly – 1:57.73
- 200 IM – 2:07.08
- 400 IM – 4:28.94
Her 2:16.71 long course fly at the 2018 Pro Swim Series stop in Mesa ranked her 4th among Polish women that year.
The Utah women finished 7th at the 2020 Pac-12 Championships. They scored just 10 points at that meet in the 200 fly, which a full-speed Niemczak should help dramatically: her best time would have put her just outside of the A final at last year’s Pac-12 Championship meet. Her best time in the 100 fly would have also put her in the B final last season at the Pac-12 Championships.
In high school, Niemczak broke the New Mexico State Record in the 100 yard fly (55.2) and was named the state’s Gatorade Athlete of the Year. Her father, Antoni, was a world-class marathon runner, and both of her parents were born in Poland.
Niemczak leaves Fresno State as the school record holder in the 200 free, 500 free, 100 fly, and 200 fly.
