2021 NCAA B Finalist Sophie Housey Announces Transfer to Texas A&M

After entering the transfer portal at the beginning of April, 2021 NCAA B finalist in the 200 freestyle Sophie Housey has announced she will be transferring to Texas A&M.

Housey spent her first two years at Michigan and has at least two years of eligibility remaining. Housey also has the potential to take a fifth year as her freshman year was during the 2020-2021 season when the NCAA granted all athletes another year of eligibility due to COVID-19.

This past season, Housey competed in a total of three NCAA meets for Michigan. She spent most of the fall dealing with sicknesses and injury. Housey told SwimSwam that at the beginning of the fall she had an “internal health scare.” She then injured her shoulder and had “an unexpected family death happened in the midst of rehabbing my shoulder, which led to a further stretch out of the pool.” In addition to all of that, she then also got the flu which caused her to lose 15 pounds.

Despite her fall, she swam at the 2022 Big Ten Championships where she swam a best time in the 200 backstroke in prelims (1:55.16). She ended up 15th in the 200 backstroke (1:56.09), 15th in the 200 freestyle (1:47.58), and 23rd in the 200 butterfly (2:02.19). Housey told SwimSwam back in April that although she missed most of the fall season, she was fully healthy for the 2022 Big Ten Championships.

In her freshman season, Housey swam in the ‘A’ final at the 2021 Big Ten Championships in all three of her individual events. She went on to compete at 2021 NCAAs where she finished 14th individually in the 200 freestyle (1:45.74). She also led off Michigan’s 800 freestyle relay in a 1:45.45. That relay finished 10th.

Housey is a huge pick-up for the Texas A&M Aggies as the Aggies have gone from 13th to 39th at NCAAs over the past four years.

The Aggie women finished sixth out of 12 teams at the 2022 SEC Championships. Housey’s best time in the 200 freestyle would have finished seventh at the 2022 SEC Championships. In addition, her best time in the 200 backstroke would have been eighth, and her best 200 butterfly would have been 14th. In total, Housey’s best times would have provided an additional 58 individual points for Texas A&M at the 2022 SEC Championships.

Housey also has the potential to make a big impact to the Texas A&M relays. The team’s 800 freestyle relay finished sixth at the 2022 SEC Championships and were led by Chloe Stepanek who led off in a 1:42.40. Stepanek swam the only sub-1:46 split of the relay. Housey’s flat start best time of 1:45.45 would have been the second fastest on that relay only behind Stepanek.

Texas A&M went on to swim the 800 freestyle relay at 2022 NCAAs but they were ultimately disqualified. Notably, Stepanek scored the team’s only point at NCAAs as she finished 16th in the 200 freestyle swimming a time of 1:45.44. Like Housey, Stepanek is entering her junior year this fall.

Housey told SwimSwam that Texas A&M stood out to her because of “the school itself and the friendly staff.” She also said that her “credits transferred in well compared to other schools.”