![]() Matson coaching North Carolina in 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Current position | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Title | Head Coach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Team | North Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Conference | ACC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Record | 38–4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Biographical details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, U.S. | March 17, 2000||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | North Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Playing career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2018–2022 | North Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Position(s) | Midfielder | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2023–present | North Carolina | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Head coaching record | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall | 38–4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Accomplishments and honors | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Championships | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As a Player:
As a Coach:
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Awards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Erin Matson (born March 17, 2000) is an American field hockey coach and former player who is the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels field hockey team. She has led the Tar Heels to win five NCAA championships, four as a player (2018–2020, 2022) and one as a coach (2023).
Matson is one of only two players to be selected to the United States national team at age 16; [1] the first was Katie Bam, selected in 2005.
Matson grew up in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and started playing field hockey in 2006. [2] Her mother, Jill, played field hockey and softball at Yale, and her father, Brian, played baseball at Delaware. [3] Matson played as a midfielder and graduated from Unionville High School in 2018. [4] In high school, she committed to play collegiate field hockey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, under head coach Karen Shelton. [5]
In the fall of 2018, Matson made her debut in Chapel Hill, and over the course of her time there, became one of the most decorated athletes in North Carolina Tar Heels history, with career achievements rivaling those of Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Tyler Hansbrough. While at North Carolina, she won the Honda Sports Award three times, being recognized as the nation's top collegiate field hockey player in 2019, 2020, and 2022. [6] [7] [8] She won four NCAA Championships as a player (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022), and five ACC titles in her five seasons in Chapel Hill. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA granted all student-athletes an extra year of eligibility, which Matson used to return to Carolina for a fifth playing season in 2022. Matson was recognized as the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Offensive Player of the Year every season she played at Carolina.
Following Karen Shelton's retirement in December 2022, and just a month after her own graduation from UNC, Matson was named the Tar Heels' head coach on January 31, 2023. In a move that paralleled Shelton's own hiring 42 years prior (Shelton was 23 when she became head coach), Matson became the Tar Heels' head coach at the age of 22. [9] Matson inherited a defending national championship team made up of many of her former teammates. [3] On November 19, 2023, the Tar Heels won the NCAA field hockey national championship, their 5th title in 6 years; this made Matson the second youngest NCAA Division I coach in history to win a national championship, just two months older than Myron Roderick was at the time of his win. [10]
Matson was part of the United States team at the 2016–17 Hockey World League Semifinals in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the final, Matson scored the winning goal in a penalty shootout against Germany. [11] Matson has represented the US in four other international competitions in her career, the first being the 2014 Youth Indoor Pan American Games. [4]
No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
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1. | 11 August 2017 | Lancaster, United States | ![]() | 2–2 | 3–4 | 2017 Women's Pan American Cup |
2. | 17 November 2017 | Auckland, New Zealand | ![]() | 1–0 | 1–1 | 2016–17 Women's FIH Hockey World League Final |
3. | 29 July 2019 | Lima, Peru | ![]() | 4–0 | 5–0 | 2019 Pan American Games |
4. | 31 July 2019 | ![]() | 1–2 | 4–2 | ||
5. | 2 August 2019 | ![]() | 3–0 | 8–0 | ||
6. | 9 August 2019 | ![]() | 2–1 | 5–1 | ||
7. | 4–1 | |||||
8. | 5–1 | |||||
Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
North Carolina Tar Heels (Atlantic Coast Conference)(2023–present) | |||||||||
2023 | North Carolina | 18–3 | 5–1 | T–1st | NCAA Champions | ||||
2024 | North Carolina | 20–1 | 8–0 | 1st | NCAA Final Four | ||||
North Carolina: | 38–4 | 13–1 | |||||||
Total: | 38–4 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion |
Matson is in a relationship with Major League Baseball pitcher Ben Casparius. [12]
Andrew Tyler Hansbrough is an American former professional basketball player. He played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for seven seasons, as well as internationally.
Karen Christina Shelton is an American former field hockey player and coach. Shelton served as head coach of the University of North Carolina's field hockey program from 1981 until her retirement in 2022. She was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1977 to 1984 and a starter on the team that won the bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. She attended West Chester State and was a member of four NCAA championship winning teams. Shelton also qualified for the 1980 Olympic team but did not compete due to the Olympic Committee's boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russia. As consolation, she was one of 461 athletes to receive a Congressional Gold Medal many years later.
Cindy Werley is a former Olympic field hockey forward from the United States, who made her international debut for the Women's National Team in 1994. She was a member of the American team that competed at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the Tar Heel State. The campus at Chapel Hill is referred to as the University of North Carolina for the purposes of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Since the school fostered the oldest collegiate team in the Carolinas, the school took on the nickname Carolina, especially in athletics. The Tar Heels are also referred to as UNC or The Heels.
The North Carolina Tar Heels football team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the sport of American football or Gridiron Football. The Tar Heels play in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and are members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
The North Carolina Tar Heels Men's basketball program is a college basketball team of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels have won six NCAA championships in addition to a 1924 Helms Athletic Foundation title (retroactive). North Carolina has won a record 133 NCAA tournament matchups while advancing to 31 Sweet Sixteen berths, a record 21 Final Fours, and 12 title games. It is the only school to have an active streak of reaching the National Championship game for nine straight decades and at least two Final Fours for six straight decades, all while averaging more wins per season played (20.7) than any other program in college basketball. In 2012, ESPN ranked North Carolina No. 1 on its list of the 50 most successful programs of the past fifty years.
Kathleen "Katie" O'Donnell Bam is an American field hockey player. She was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and attended Wissahickon High School in Ambler, Pennsylvania. O'Donnell began playing for the Maryland Terrapins in the 2007 season. She was the youngest member of the 2005 United States women's national team and has become known for her excellent stick skills and ability to create. Her attributes were put on full display throughout her freshman campaign as she earned a starting position for the preseason number-one team in the country at forward.
The North Carolina Tar Heels field hockey team represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I field hockey.
The North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer team represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I soccer.
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's lacrosse team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. North Carolina currently competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and plays its home games at Dorrance Field and Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their main rivalry series is with fellow ACC member Duke.
Elmar Bolowich was most recently head coach of the George Mason Patriots men's soccer team at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, United States. He was previously the head coach of the Creighton Bluejays men's soccer team at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska for eight years after leaving his 22-year tenure as the head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels men's soccer team at the University of North Carolina.
The North Carolina Tar Heels men's soccer team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in men's NCAA Division I soccer competition. They compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Tar Heels won the NCAA championship in 2001 and 2011. They play at Dorrance Field.
The North Carolina Tar Heels women's lacrosse team represents the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I women's lacrosse and currently competes as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The North Carolina women's lacrosse team won the ACC tournament in 2002 and their first Division 1 national championship in 2013.
The 2016 North Carolina Tar Heels football team represented the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a member of Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) during the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team was led by fifth-year head coach Larry Fedora and played their home games at Kenan Memorial Stadium. The Tar Heels finished the season 8–5 overall and 5–3 in ACC play to place in a three-way tie for second in the Coastal Division. They were invited to the Sun Bowl, where they lost to Stanford.
Caitlin Van Sickle is an American field hockey coach and former player. From Wilmington, Delaware, she was a standout athlete at Tower Hill School where she was the state's athlete of the year in both field hockey and lacrosse. She played field hockey at the collegiate level for the North Carolina Tar Heels from 2009 to 2012, receiving numerous honors including being a three-time All-American and a three-time Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Defender of the Year. She won a national championship with the Tar Heels in 2009 and helped them make appearances at three further.
Lauren Moyer is an American field hockey player for the American national team. Moyer was raised to the United States national team in 2017, following success in the national junior team.
The 2022 North Carolina Tar Heels football team represented the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a member of the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) for the 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Tar Heels were led by head coach Mack Brown, who was in the fourth season of his second stint at North Carolina and 14th overall season at the university. The team played their home games at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
The 2022–23 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team represented the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the 2022–23 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team was led by Hubert Davis, who was in his second year as UNC's head coach. The Tar Heels played their home games at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Ryleigh Anne Heck is an American college field hockey player for the North Carolina Tar Heels. She has won two NCAA championships with the Tar Heels, in 2022 and 2023, and was named the NFHCA national player of the year in 2023.