Matt Rickett played basketball while growing up. It was hard not to. His mother, Liz, was a phenomenal player in high school and college and coached at McAuley.

So Matt Rickett ran up and down the court at Deering High, alongside Carlos Strong, who would eventually lead the Rams to a Class A state championship and end up at Boston University.

Rickett ended up at BU’s Commonwealth Avenue campus as well. But it wasn’t for basketball. When he turned 16, he switched to competitive swimming. And that’s where he has made his mark.

The 22-year-old Rickett is currently preparing for the NCAA championships. He has the 22nd-best time in the nation in the 100 butterfly (46.71 seconds) and thinks that will make the cut for the NCAA meet.

“We’re just waiting right now,” he said in a phone interview Monday. “It looks pretty good. I’ll be surprised if I don’t make it. My sophomore year, I was ranked 24th, and that got the last spot.”

Rickett has had a spectacular career at BU. He holds two individual school records – 20.08 seconds in the 50 freestyle and 46.43 in the 100 butterfly, both set in 2009. He is part of four school-record relay teams: the 200 medley, 400 medley, 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle. The relay teams also hold America East records, as does Rickett in the 100 butterfly.

That he became so successful in swimming, which he really didn’t take seriously until he was 16, is amazing even to Rickett.

“I didn’t even learn to swim until I was 8 or 9, and then it kind of snowballed from there,” he said. “I was all about basketball until I was 16. Then I started swimming and everything happened real quickly. Before I knew it, I was getting calls and everything.”

Texas, Georgia, Southern California, North Carolina. All those schools contacted him. Rickett chose BU because, he said, “I felt most comfortable there. It was the right mixture of everything.” He loved the city, the pool, the coaches and his teammates.

The switch from basketball was a difficult choice. But Rickett said his hoop career wasn’t progressing as well as he wanted. He had swam in middle school, and was good at it. But it wasn’t until he gave up basketball, and when he started swimming with Sharon Power and the Portland Porpoises club team, and then with the Seacoast Swimming Association in Dover, N.H., that he really began to develop.

It was with those clubs that he got the proper training, direction and motivation.

And it was with them that he found his best event – the butterfly.

“Swimming is kind of weird,” said Rickett. “You don’t choose what you’re good at. It just happens. I didn’t choose to be good at the butterfly. It just happened.

“As you’re training, you learn what you’re good at, what you’re OK at and what you’re really bad at. So you work toward your strengths. And because I didn’t start swimming competitively until I was 16, I had to realize early on that the 100 fly was what I was good at.”

Power, the former coach for Olympic medalist Ian Crocker, honed Rickett’s stroke. Jen Strasburger, an assistant at BU, further refined it.

Rickett has previously qualified for the NCAAs. As a sophomore, he became the first Terriers swimmer in 27 years to make it to the NCAA meet.

“It would be great to obviously get a best time, that’s my main goal,” he said. “Whether or not that puts me in the finals at night, that’s yet to be determined. I can’t control how fast everyone else goes.

“It’d be great to get into the finals. But now I’m focusing on swimming my race the best I can. When it comes to the final 100 fly of my career, it’s going to be the best 100 fly I’ve ever done.”

Rickett will graduate in May with a degree in film and television. From there, he’s not sure where he will go.

“I have a couple more months to figure out what I’m going to do,” he said. “But I’m excited to see what’s out there.”

MEN’S HOCKEY

Freshman forward Garnet Hathaway of Kennebunkport has five goals and nine assists for Brown University. He played at Phillips Andover Academy.

INDOOR TRACK

Princeton junior Dave Slovenski of Brunswick won his third consecutive Ivy League pole vault championship in the recent Ivy League Heptagonal. He set a meet record with his vault of 5.28 meters (17 feet, 3 3/4 inches).

• Worcester (Mass.) State freshman Hannah Werneth of North Yarmouth (Greely) set a school record in the shot put in the recent Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference championships with her throw of 11.99 meters (39 feet, 4 inches). The next week she placed 10th in the New England Division III championships with a throw of 11.22 meters.

• Junior Pak Lul of Portland (North Yarmouth Academy) set a Stonehill College record when he placed third in the 500-meter run at the recent Northeast-10 Conference championships. Lul ran a time of 1 minute, 4.87 seconds. Lul also ran a leg on the Skyhawks’ 400-meter relay team that finished third.

• Middlebury (Vt.) College senior Kaitlynn Saldanha of Scarborough was a member of the distance medley relay team that finished sixth in the recent Open New England Championships at Boston University. The relay team had a time of 12:16.09.

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Senior Nicole Viola of Scarborough (McAuley) was named a captain at Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I. Viola started 18 games last year and scored 46 goals and had 12 assists. She also collected 28 ground balls with 19 caused turnovers and 13 draw controls. She has 95 goals and 126 total points in her career.

• Senior Kaley Waterman of Berwick (Noble) was named captain at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, N.H. Waterman, a defender, led SNHU in caused turnovers (23) last year along with 38 ground balls.

• Keene (N.H.) State senior attack Lauren Sawyer of Westbrook scored three goals to help the Owls to a 15-5 season-opening victory over Saint Michael’s.

• Merrimack senior attacker Maria DeStefano of Eliot (Marshwood) scored two goals for the Warriors in a 19-5 season-opening victory over Queens College.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Freshman forward Derek Mayo of Casco (Lake Region) played a pivotal role for 18-11 Wentworth College, which advanced to the ECAC New England Division III quarterfinals. Mayo, who scored 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds in the 96-95, double-overtime loss to Albertus Magnus, averaged 7.2 points and 4.0 rebounds for the Leopards. He led the team with 43 steals and was second with 82 assists.

SKIING

Middlebury freshman Emily Attwood of Cape Elizabeth finished 23rd in the 15-kilometer classic Nordic race at the recent Bates Carnival. She had a time of 56:21.

SWIMMING

Junior Matt Libby of Freeport (Cheverus) helped Gettysburg (Pa.) College win the Centennial Conference championship. Libby finished with five gold medals, one silver and one bronze, setting five conference records.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Senior point guard Emily Rousseau of Biddeford had 15 points, five assists and four steals as Stonehill College lost to Southern New Hampshire in the first round of the recent Northeast-10 playoffs. Rousseau averaged 16.9 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals for the 17-11 Skyhawks and was named to the All-Northeast-10 second team. Sophomore Sloane Sorrell of Berwick (Noble) scored eight points and had seven rebounds for Southern New Hampshire.

 

Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at: mlowe@pressherald.com