Erin Matson
Photo by: UNC Athletic Communications
Matson’s Place In History Secure, But More To Accomplish
September 1, 2022 | Field Hockey
What Tar Heel fan given the opportunity to travel back in time wouldn't delight in watching "Choo Choo" Justice zig-zagging through Duke's defense, Phil Ford running the 4 Corners, Michael Jordan slamming home another dunk or Mia Hamm's goal-scoring artistry?
We long for the days of being able to watch the heroes of previous generations just once or maybe one more time. Short of dialing up YouTube or reviewing grainy photos, those special moments are just that – indelible memories.
However, there is a Tar Heel whose track record of both individual brilliance and team success can still be watched up close and personal. Someone whose legacy of national championships, player-of-the-year awards and statistical records have already earned her solid footing among the greatest of the all-time Carolina legends.
Her name is Erin Matson, a scoring savant and a fifth-year senior on the 2022 UNC field hockey team that is off to a 2-0 start and begins its home schedule at Karen Shelton Stadium this weekend (Friday at 5 p.m. vs. Princeton and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. vs. Penn).
Every season in each sport there are National and ACC Players of the Year, All-Americas, Final Four MVPs, players who break records and win the praise of their coaches, the teams they play against, fans and the media. Then there are players such as Justice, Ford, Jordan, Hamm and a few others whose play transcend the sport they dominated and are elevated to that select group of the best of the all-time best.
Phil, Mia, MJ and Charlie – meet Erin, she's one of you.
We usually don't talk about current student-athletes like this, and we have never talked about someone with Matson's credentials playing a fifth season. But due to Covid, all student-athletes were given a free year in 2020-21, so Carolina and college field hockey are the beneficiaries of Matson, who began her career in the fall of 2018, having an extra season of eligibility.
So, what has she done in her previous four seasons to warrant such lofty praise?
Carolina is 80-8 during the Chadds Ford, Pa., native's career, including NCAA championship seasons in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and four consecutive ACC titles. She also is:
• a four-time, first-team All-America and All-ACC honoree
• two-time (2019 and 2020) Honda Award winner as the National Player of the Year
• two-time (2019 and 2020) NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player
• two-time (2020 and 2021) ACC Tournament MVP
• four-time ACC Offensive Player of the Year
• three-time All-NCAA Tournament and four-time All-ACC Tournament
• 2018 ACC Rookie of the Year
• the ACC's all-time leading goal scorer
• and Carolina's all-time leader in points and goals
Before you think her impact has only been on the pitch, know she has earned three Academic All-ACC awards, National Scholar-Athlete recognition and was the 2021 ACC Field Hockey Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She is majoring in advertising and public relations in UNC's Hussman School of Media and Journalism.
Oh, and earlier this year, the ACC Network named Matson one of the 10 Greatest Female Athletes in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"It's absolutely fair to include her with the all-time greats," says nine-time national champion head coach Karen Shelton, the winningest coach in collegiate field hockey history. "In my opinion, and I've been doing this for more than 40 years and have seen all the greats play, she is the Michael Jordan of field hockey."
The daughter of Brian and Jill Matson, who played collegiate sports themselves at Delaware and Yale, respectively, first picked up a field hockey stick at 6 years old, learning the game on an uneven field, but embracing the challenge of a sport very few people in this country know how to play. She began to love the sport from her first coach, Terry Lotter, and by age 9 had joined the WC Eagles, a nationally-competitive club 45 minutes west of Philadelphia, where she began to train with older players.
Her coaches and parents saw her natural abilities and competitive fire, and even at that young age Matson staked a path she still traverses today.
"I remember lying in bed in our old house and I was talking to my dad and we were just hanging out," says Matson. "I said, 'Dad, I want to go to the Olympics'. It wasn't one of those conversations where it was, 'I want to do this and we'll see if it happens.' It was 'I want to do this and I'm going to do it and I have the capabilities to do it. I'm just going keep working at it.' And I will forever remember that moment."
Matson hasn't yet realized her dream of playing in the Olympics, although she made her first United States National Team appearance with the indoor squad at 13 years old and began playing for the outdoor National Team at 17. She's represented Team USA in more than a dozen countries (New Zealand is her favorite destination), but it isn't easy being the most recognizable player in a sport in a country where many fans don't understand the rules or know the star players.
"Sometimes I wish it was like it is in Holland, where you walk down the block and there's a pitch and people are given baskets when they have a newborn, and there's a field hockey stick in it and it's just natural to grow up in the hockey culture," says Matson. "That's why they're so much better, because they grow up talking about hockey, watching hockey, playing hockey, rather than turning on ESPN to watch baseball or football.
"It hurts that we don't have men's teams here in the U.S. In Europe, men's hockey is equally as important as women's, if not more. But we take a lot of pride in what we do at Carolina and the success we have because it's more than just winning games and trophies. The best part is bringing it back to the university. You've seen field hockey take off down south, in Charlotte and around the Triangle. We have fans even at scrimmages where five years ago people didn't even know we were playing. It's been awesome to see that kind of change with the success we've had."
Matson says fans in the U.S. will start to come around when the National Team has more success in international play, which mirrors the growth of sports such as soccer and lacrosse. Until then, she's full-go on helping Carolina toward its pursuit of its 10th national championship.
"She likes to win," Shelton says in response to what drives Matson to more success at the collegiate level. "She's a competitor and she loves to score. She's a striker (center forward), so she should love to score and she does. She's not shy about it. But she will make the right decision at the right time. When the correct decision is for her to pass, she'll make the pass."
Not only is Matson a prolific goal scorer, she is third all-time at Carolina in assists and has won the team award in each of the past three seasons for the most open-play assists.
Matson and Shelton agree on several character traits and skills that have led to her remarkable levels of achievements as a Tar Heel. Both refer to Matson's burning desire to be the best, the quickest and most creative hands in the game and an understanding, a savvy that Shelton calls 'game sense.'
"Erin has great vision, super-fast hands, she can run and has game sense vision," says Shelton. "One other attribute I take from Anson (Dorrance, UNC women's soccer coach) is Erin has the gift of fury. When she plays, she is just relentless, and the madder she gets, the better she plays. She just plays her heart out. Technically, she has all the skills. She can do an upright reverse, backhand, forehand, can tap it in out of the air, throw it over the top. But she does them at a high level and at the right time."
Matson laughs when asked to identify the secret sauce that has made her such an extraordinary player.
"It's really not a secret," she says. "I have always taken a lot of pride in the fundamentals and not getting bored with the simple stuff, where I think a lot of other players want to do the flashy and exciting things. They don't understand you can't do that if you aren't a complete master at the simple things. That has helped me because in games I can just whip out a cool move that I never practiced but was a combination of all these skills I've practiced over and over again.
"I also think people underestimate the use of speed, rather than just being fast. It's awesome to be the fastest on the field, but you can be way more efficient and threatening if you know how to change your speed. Using your defender to pull away from the goal and then getting in front of her quickly rather than just running fast in a straight line."
If you have ever watched Matson shoot the ball, either with a forehand or reverse (and goalies know what I'm talking about here) her precision and pace are breathtaking.
"It's important to have different ways to score," Matson adds. "If the defense wants to close down my reverse, then I'll go to my forehand. If you want to close my reverse and forehand, I'm going to lift it over you and then push it on cage. I want to have a huge arsenal of scoring skills, doing things as quickly as possible, especially in the circle."
Matson is one of the most exciting, dynamic players in the sport. One of the best times to observe that is when games go to overtime, where players on the field are reduced from 10 (plus a goalie) in regulation to six in up to 20 minutes of action where a single goal ends the game in sudden victory. The extra field space is ideal for Matson and players like UNC freshmen Ashley Sessa and Ryleigh Heck to show off their individual skills but in a team setting.
However flashy Matson can be, however, it's the simple skills that she says have led to her success.
"People have made fun of me for doing pulls (where a player quickly drags the ball from side to side to practice change of direction and ball control)," says Matson. "When we were younger, it would be the yardstick challenge and you see how many pulls you can do from one end of the stick to the other in 30 seconds, 60 seconds, whatever. It's the simplest thing, but I still to do it to this day. People have made fun of me like, 'Oh, Erin, you just do your pulls. That's only going get you so far.' I'm just going to keep doing them because you know, it's worked for me so why would I stop?
"Girls come up to me at clinics and after games or they DM (direct message) and ask me to give them some drills. They get so frustrated because they want this whole elaborate plan of reverse lifts and spins and all this stuff. I tell them your hands get quicker by going back and forth and moving quickly. It goes back to the fundamentals. I can't stress it enough to younger players."
Matson also credits a baseball influence from her father with some help from her younger brother, Sean, now a sophomore pitcher at Harvard.
"My dad, Sean and I would go out to the field and they'd bring their baseball gloves out and field ground balls from me hitting it back to them. They'd roll it back to me and I'd practice getting my stick on the ball, receiving it cleanly and not letting it bounce off while having my center of gravity over the ball. I'm very much a perfectionist and pay attention to detail. It pains me when other people don't, because focus and attention to detail is underrated."
Another area in which the legendary UNC coach and star pupil agree is Matson has significantly developed her leadership skills just as much in her four-plus years in Chapel Hill as her wicked reverse lasers.
"Erin's always been a great player and has always been a leader," says Shelton. "But she's just more mature, steadier now. She holds her teammates accountable in a way that's accepted. When she was younger, she used to bark at the older players when she wasn't quite as established. She's grown and knows how to handle her teammates a little bit better."
"I'm a very rational person to begin with but sometimes my emotions get the best of me and I get so passionate and intense," Matson says. "I've learned to treat everybody specific to how they respond. That takes effort. I do have to remind myself that some people can't be at the standard I hold myself and every player learns a different way. Some you can just tell how to do something, some need to see it on a whiteboard and others need to go out and do a demo and that's okay. We all learn things in different ways and then it clicks."
One place where Matson is most comfortable is the postseason. November is ACC and NCAA Tournament time, when the Tar Heels have enjoyed rich success not just in Matson's previous four seasons but throughout Shelton's tenure in Chapel Hill.
Carolina is 10-0 with four ACC Tournament championships with Matson on the field contributing 16 goals and six assists. Last season, she returned to the lineup one game prior to the ACC Tournament after missing three weeks after a serious hand injury and promptly scored three times in a crucial win at Virginia. In the ACC Tournament she scored twice in the first round against Wake Forest, a hat trick in the semifinals against Syracuse (her 11th career game with three or more goals) and the only goal in a 1-0 win over the Cavaliers in the final. She set the ACC Tournament record with 14 points in the three games.
Her NCAA Tournament resumé on the game's biggest stage has been equally dominant. Matson has scored 17 NCAA Tournament goals and has six assists, scoring goals in 10 of 12 NCAA games. She has a combined four goals in three championship games – one against Maryland as a freshman in 2018, two against Princeton in 2019 and a pair, including the game-winner in overtime, against Michigan in the spring of 2021 (which was the cap to the 2020 season that had been pushed back to May due to Covid).
In one of her most spectacular postseason games, she netted four goals in a 6-2 win over Boston College in the 2019 national semifinals, among her 40 career points in NCAA Tournament play.
"The national championship game against Michigan is obviously the one game that comes to my mind," says Matson when asked to select a UNC moment that most stands out to her. "That will just replay over and over again forever. Nothing will top the win at Karen Shelton Stadium, the celebration with the girls, the celebration of the crowd, how packed the stadium was."
Matson's appreciation for the memories she and her teammates have made and her love of being a Tar Heel are front and center. But so is enjoying time with her classmates and just being part of the Carolina Athletics family and UNC student body.
"I really like the J-School, the marketing classes, leadership and storytelling classes, digital storytelling." She says her classes have carried over into life, especially now as she works an internship for a marketing company as part of an NIL deal.
Matson has signed several corporate sponsorships, which she says are helpful to Olympic-sport athletes but understands the tricky terrain athletic departments and student-athletes are dealing in during the early stages of Name, Image and Likeness.
"I think of myself and other Olympic sport athletes who graduate and make nothing when they go to play and represent their country, so having the opportunity to put that money aside to use the next 5-10 years makes a huge difference. The companies you work with and the things you learn are amazing. You know, I'm an LLC now, and I didn't know how to file taxes before, I didn't know what any of that meant. It's been so amazing to enter that world. I'm spoiled to say I am my business, and I get to go out there and play hockey and enjoy myself, have fun with my team and challenge myself."
Last spring, Matson was named one of 50 Champions of the First 50 Years of Carolina Women's Athletics, the only current student-athlete so honored. She was awestruck at the celebratory gala held in Carmichael Arena, where she held court with the other honorees.
"I met Mia (Hamm) at a soccer game last year. And her husband (Nomar Garciaparra). It was just so cool. I saw Mia again at the gala and she's awesome. It literally was like catching up with an old friend. When that list came out, my dad was probably crying while he was texting it to me. And my mom was like, 'What the heck is this? We're so proud of you.' It was a cool moment. (Assistant coach) Grant (Fulton) announced to the team that Coach Shelton and I were two of the champions. And they went nuts and everything."
Matson acknowledges the role she has played in making history for the Tar Heels, but she also is quick to point out that being part of the Carolina community is itself rewarding.
"Being a student-athlete at Carolina is special. You go to Loudermilk to the fueling (nutrition) station and hey, there's Sam Howell or hey, Armando (Bacot). 'What's up? Where are you going?' That doesn't happen everywhere. You're thrown into a community of great athletes, great students, great people. It's hard to fail because you're surrounded by so many people who are the best at what they do and are very supportive. The relationships I've built will last a lifetime. We take our alumni network very seriously here at Carolina. It's someone you can turn to for help because you're a Tar Heel and those connections will last forever."
Matson has the good fortune of playing in a program where she is the sixth to win National Player-of-the Year honors and will have her No. 1 retired following this season, joining Leslie Lyness (1989), Cindy Werley (1996 and 1997), Rachel Dawson (2007), Katelyn Falgowksi (2011) and Ashley Hoffman (2018). The common thread throughout is Shelton, who has coached more than 40 first-team All-Americas.
"Coach knows how to talk to each person so that they hear it and understand it and put things into action," says Matson. "I may be biased because we are similar, but she has a very good balance of relentlessness and no mercy. She's here to mentor, be a coach, be like a mother figure and help raise these girls and empower strong women like she always talks about. She does a really good job of making sure that we're okay, and that we're learning and growing and confident, while also knowing this is business, we're here to take care of stuff.
"She's hard on me and I want her to be. Coach knows she can talk to me more directly about certain things than other people. She can come to me or I can go to her and we just talk out anything. Whether it's what's best for the team, what we need in pregame practice, what we want for postgame food, we have a very open line of communication, which I am thankful and respect her for."
About that select group of all-time greats Matson has played her way into. What does hearing her name on that list mean to her?
"I don't think it will ever become normal; I don't even know how to react because it's hard to wrap my head around how people talk about what I've done but I'm proud. It makes me happy to see we have basketball players and soccer players, and then there's hockey, like that wouldn't have happened 10 years ago, so it's good for our sport.
"And then the other side is I don't think Coach Shelton or I will ever be satisfied. I want to come out this season and make it completely undeniable, my goal is for there to be no question who the best to ever do it was. I'm not saying that to be cocky, but that is my dream. I'm chasing that dream of being the best with my teammates, which means I am bringing awareness to my university and to our field hockey program. I will never be satisfied. Okay, I'm mentioned in the same breath as those other greats. But what else can I do while I'm here to make sure I stay there and our program is remembered, and my five years here are remembered? That's my motivation."
The playing life of a collegiate athlete is finite, even in the highly unusual circumstances in which a player gets a fifth and final season.
Six regular-season home games and hopefully a couple NCAA Tournament games are the final times you will get to say, 'I went to beautiful Karen Shelton Stadium and saw Erin Matson play for North Carolina.' Don't regret 10, 20, 30 years from now when you look back and wish you did.
'You don't want to miss the entertainment,' Matson wrote in advance of this weekend's games on her weekly blog for the local radio station.
She's right, of course, but you also don't want to miss history.
Carolina Field Hockey 2022 Home Games
September 2 vs. Princeton (5 p.m.)
September 4 vs. Penn (1:30 p.m.)
September 23 vs. Wake Forest (4 p.m.)
October 14 vs. Syracuse (3 p.m.)
October 21 vs. Virginia (4 p.m.)
October 23 vs. St. Joseph's (2 p.m.)
We long for the days of being able to watch the heroes of previous generations just once or maybe one more time. Short of dialing up YouTube or reviewing grainy photos, those special moments are just that – indelible memories.
However, there is a Tar Heel whose track record of both individual brilliance and team success can still be watched up close and personal. Someone whose legacy of national championships, player-of-the-year awards and statistical records have already earned her solid footing among the greatest of the all-time Carolina legends.
Her name is Erin Matson, a scoring savant and a fifth-year senior on the 2022 UNC field hockey team that is off to a 2-0 start and begins its home schedule at Karen Shelton Stadium this weekend (Friday at 5 p.m. vs. Princeton and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. vs. Penn).
Every season in each sport there are National and ACC Players of the Year, All-Americas, Final Four MVPs, players who break records and win the praise of their coaches, the teams they play against, fans and the media. Then there are players such as Justice, Ford, Jordan, Hamm and a few others whose play transcend the sport they dominated and are elevated to that select group of the best of the all-time best.
Phil, Mia, MJ and Charlie – meet Erin, she's one of you.
We usually don't talk about current student-athletes like this, and we have never talked about someone with Matson's credentials playing a fifth season. But due to Covid, all student-athletes were given a free year in 2020-21, so Carolina and college field hockey are the beneficiaries of Matson, who began her career in the fall of 2018, having an extra season of eligibility.
So, what has she done in her previous four seasons to warrant such lofty praise?
Carolina is 80-8 during the Chadds Ford, Pa., native's career, including NCAA championship seasons in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and four consecutive ACC titles. She also is:
• a four-time, first-team All-America and All-ACC honoree• two-time (2019 and 2020) Honda Award winner as the National Player of the Year
• two-time (2019 and 2020) NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player
• two-time (2020 and 2021) ACC Tournament MVP
• four-time ACC Offensive Player of the Year
• three-time All-NCAA Tournament and four-time All-ACC Tournament
• 2018 ACC Rookie of the Year
• the ACC's all-time leading goal scorer
• and Carolina's all-time leader in points and goals
Before you think her impact has only been on the pitch, know she has earned three Academic All-ACC awards, National Scholar-Athlete recognition and was the 2021 ACC Field Hockey Scholar-Athlete of the Year. She is majoring in advertising and public relations in UNC's Hussman School of Media and Journalism.
Oh, and earlier this year, the ACC Network named Matson one of the 10 Greatest Female Athletes in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"It's absolutely fair to include her with the all-time greats," says nine-time national champion head coach Karen Shelton, the winningest coach in collegiate field hockey history. "In my opinion, and I've been doing this for more than 40 years and have seen all the greats play, she is the Michael Jordan of field hockey."
The daughter of Brian and Jill Matson, who played collegiate sports themselves at Delaware and Yale, respectively, first picked up a field hockey stick at 6 years old, learning the game on an uneven field, but embracing the challenge of a sport very few people in this country know how to play. She began to love the sport from her first coach, Terry Lotter, and by age 9 had joined the WC Eagles, a nationally-competitive club 45 minutes west of Philadelphia, where she began to train with older players.
Her coaches and parents saw her natural abilities and competitive fire, and even at that young age Matson staked a path she still traverses today.
"I remember lying in bed in our old house and I was talking to my dad and we were just hanging out," says Matson. "I said, 'Dad, I want to go to the Olympics'. It wasn't one of those conversations where it was, 'I want to do this and we'll see if it happens.' It was 'I want to do this and I'm going to do it and I have the capabilities to do it. I'm just going keep working at it.' And I will forever remember that moment."
Matson hasn't yet realized her dream of playing in the Olympics, although she made her first United States National Team appearance with the indoor squad at 13 years old and began playing for the outdoor National Team at 17. She's represented Team USA in more than a dozen countries (New Zealand is her favorite destination), but it isn't easy being the most recognizable player in a sport in a country where many fans don't understand the rules or know the star players.
"Sometimes I wish it was like it is in Holland, where you walk down the block and there's a pitch and people are given baskets when they have a newborn, and there's a field hockey stick in it and it's just natural to grow up in the hockey culture," says Matson. "That's why they're so much better, because they grow up talking about hockey, watching hockey, playing hockey, rather than turning on ESPN to watch baseball or football.
"It hurts that we don't have men's teams here in the U.S. In Europe, men's hockey is equally as important as women's, if not more. But we take a lot of pride in what we do at Carolina and the success we have because it's more than just winning games and trophies. The best part is bringing it back to the university. You've seen field hockey take off down south, in Charlotte and around the Triangle. We have fans even at scrimmages where five years ago people didn't even know we were playing. It's been awesome to see that kind of change with the success we've had."
Matson says fans in the U.S. will start to come around when the National Team has more success in international play, which mirrors the growth of sports such as soccer and lacrosse. Until then, she's full-go on helping Carolina toward its pursuit of its 10th national championship.
"She likes to win," Shelton says in response to what drives Matson to more success at the collegiate level. "She's a competitor and she loves to score. She's a striker (center forward), so she should love to score and she does. She's not shy about it. But she will make the right decision at the right time. When the correct decision is for her to pass, she'll make the pass."
Not only is Matson a prolific goal scorer, she is third all-time at Carolina in assists and has won the team award in each of the past three seasons for the most open-play assists.
Matson and Shelton agree on several character traits and skills that have led to her remarkable levels of achievements as a Tar Heel. Both refer to Matson's burning desire to be the best, the quickest and most creative hands in the game and an understanding, a savvy that Shelton calls 'game sense.'
"Erin has great vision, super-fast hands, she can run and has game sense vision," says Shelton. "One other attribute I take from Anson (Dorrance, UNC women's soccer coach) is Erin has the gift of fury. When she plays, she is just relentless, and the madder she gets, the better she plays. She just plays her heart out. Technically, she has all the skills. She can do an upright reverse, backhand, forehand, can tap it in out of the air, throw it over the top. But she does them at a high level and at the right time."
Matson laughs when asked to identify the secret sauce that has made her such an extraordinary player.
"It's really not a secret," she says. "I have always taken a lot of pride in the fundamentals and not getting bored with the simple stuff, where I think a lot of other players want to do the flashy and exciting things. They don't understand you can't do that if you aren't a complete master at the simple things. That has helped me because in games I can just whip out a cool move that I never practiced but was a combination of all these skills I've practiced over and over again.
"I also think people underestimate the use of speed, rather than just being fast. It's awesome to be the fastest on the field, but you can be way more efficient and threatening if you know how to change your speed. Using your defender to pull away from the goal and then getting in front of her quickly rather than just running fast in a straight line."
If you have ever watched Matson shoot the ball, either with a forehand or reverse (and goalies know what I'm talking about here) her precision and pace are breathtaking.
"It's important to have different ways to score," Matson adds. "If the defense wants to close down my reverse, then I'll go to my forehand. If you want to close my reverse and forehand, I'm going to lift it over you and then push it on cage. I want to have a huge arsenal of scoring skills, doing things as quickly as possible, especially in the circle."
Matson is one of the most exciting, dynamic players in the sport. One of the best times to observe that is when games go to overtime, where players on the field are reduced from 10 (plus a goalie) in regulation to six in up to 20 minutes of action where a single goal ends the game in sudden victory. The extra field space is ideal for Matson and players like UNC freshmen Ashley Sessa and Ryleigh Heck to show off their individual skills but in a team setting.
However flashy Matson can be, however, it's the simple skills that she says have led to her success.
"People have made fun of me for doing pulls (where a player quickly drags the ball from side to side to practice change of direction and ball control)," says Matson. "When we were younger, it would be the yardstick challenge and you see how many pulls you can do from one end of the stick to the other in 30 seconds, 60 seconds, whatever. It's the simplest thing, but I still to do it to this day. People have made fun of me like, 'Oh, Erin, you just do your pulls. That's only going get you so far.' I'm just going to keep doing them because you know, it's worked for me so why would I stop?
"Girls come up to me at clinics and after games or they DM (direct message) and ask me to give them some drills. They get so frustrated because they want this whole elaborate plan of reverse lifts and spins and all this stuff. I tell them your hands get quicker by going back and forth and moving quickly. It goes back to the fundamentals. I can't stress it enough to younger players."
Matson also credits a baseball influence from her father with some help from her younger brother, Sean, now a sophomore pitcher at Harvard.
"My dad, Sean and I would go out to the field and they'd bring their baseball gloves out and field ground balls from me hitting it back to them. They'd roll it back to me and I'd practice getting my stick on the ball, receiving it cleanly and not letting it bounce off while having my center of gravity over the ball. I'm very much a perfectionist and pay attention to detail. It pains me when other people don't, because focus and attention to detail is underrated."
Another area in which the legendary UNC coach and star pupil agree is Matson has significantly developed her leadership skills just as much in her four-plus years in Chapel Hill as her wicked reverse lasers.
"Erin's always been a great player and has always been a leader," says Shelton. "But she's just more mature, steadier now. She holds her teammates accountable in a way that's accepted. When she was younger, she used to bark at the older players when she wasn't quite as established. She's grown and knows how to handle her teammates a little bit better."
"I'm a very rational person to begin with but sometimes my emotions get the best of me and I get so passionate and intense," Matson says. "I've learned to treat everybody specific to how they respond. That takes effort. I do have to remind myself that some people can't be at the standard I hold myself and every player learns a different way. Some you can just tell how to do something, some need to see it on a whiteboard and others need to go out and do a demo and that's okay. We all learn things in different ways and then it clicks."
One place where Matson is most comfortable is the postseason. November is ACC and NCAA Tournament time, when the Tar Heels have enjoyed rich success not just in Matson's previous four seasons but throughout Shelton's tenure in Chapel Hill.
Carolina is 10-0 with four ACC Tournament championships with Matson on the field contributing 16 goals and six assists. Last season, she returned to the lineup one game prior to the ACC Tournament after missing three weeks after a serious hand injury and promptly scored three times in a crucial win at Virginia. In the ACC Tournament she scored twice in the first round against Wake Forest, a hat trick in the semifinals against Syracuse (her 11th career game with three or more goals) and the only goal in a 1-0 win over the Cavaliers in the final. She set the ACC Tournament record with 14 points in the three games.
Her NCAA Tournament resumé on the game's biggest stage has been equally dominant. Matson has scored 17 NCAA Tournament goals and has six assists, scoring goals in 10 of 12 NCAA games. She has a combined four goals in three championship games – one against Maryland as a freshman in 2018, two against Princeton in 2019 and a pair, including the game-winner in overtime, against Michigan in the spring of 2021 (which was the cap to the 2020 season that had been pushed back to May due to Covid).
In one of her most spectacular postseason games, she netted four goals in a 6-2 win over Boston College in the 2019 national semifinals, among her 40 career points in NCAA Tournament play.
"The national championship game against Michigan is obviously the one game that comes to my mind," says Matson when asked to select a UNC moment that most stands out to her. "That will just replay over and over again forever. Nothing will top the win at Karen Shelton Stadium, the celebration with the girls, the celebration of the crowd, how packed the stadium was."
Matson's appreciation for the memories she and her teammates have made and her love of being a Tar Heel are front and center. But so is enjoying time with her classmates and just being part of the Carolina Athletics family and UNC student body.
"I really like the J-School, the marketing classes, leadership and storytelling classes, digital storytelling." She says her classes have carried over into life, especially now as she works an internship for a marketing company as part of an NIL deal.
Matson has signed several corporate sponsorships, which she says are helpful to Olympic-sport athletes but understands the tricky terrain athletic departments and student-athletes are dealing in during the early stages of Name, Image and Likeness.
"I think of myself and other Olympic sport athletes who graduate and make nothing when they go to play and represent their country, so having the opportunity to put that money aside to use the next 5-10 years makes a huge difference. The companies you work with and the things you learn are amazing. You know, I'm an LLC now, and I didn't know how to file taxes before, I didn't know what any of that meant. It's been so amazing to enter that world. I'm spoiled to say I am my business, and I get to go out there and play hockey and enjoy myself, have fun with my team and challenge myself."
Last spring, Matson was named one of 50 Champions of the First 50 Years of Carolina Women's Athletics, the only current student-athlete so honored. She was awestruck at the celebratory gala held in Carmichael Arena, where she held court with the other honorees.
"I met Mia (Hamm) at a soccer game last year. And her husband (Nomar Garciaparra). It was just so cool. I saw Mia again at the gala and she's awesome. It literally was like catching up with an old friend. When that list came out, my dad was probably crying while he was texting it to me. And my mom was like, 'What the heck is this? We're so proud of you.' It was a cool moment. (Assistant coach) Grant (Fulton) announced to the team that Coach Shelton and I were two of the champions. And they went nuts and everything."
Matson acknowledges the role she has played in making history for the Tar Heels, but she also is quick to point out that being part of the Carolina community is itself rewarding.
"Being a student-athlete at Carolina is special. You go to Loudermilk to the fueling (nutrition) station and hey, there's Sam Howell or hey, Armando (Bacot). 'What's up? Where are you going?' That doesn't happen everywhere. You're thrown into a community of great athletes, great students, great people. It's hard to fail because you're surrounded by so many people who are the best at what they do and are very supportive. The relationships I've built will last a lifetime. We take our alumni network very seriously here at Carolina. It's someone you can turn to for help because you're a Tar Heel and those connections will last forever."
Matson has the good fortune of playing in a program where she is the sixth to win National Player-of-the Year honors and will have her No. 1 retired following this season, joining Leslie Lyness (1989), Cindy Werley (1996 and 1997), Rachel Dawson (2007), Katelyn Falgowksi (2011) and Ashley Hoffman (2018). The common thread throughout is Shelton, who has coached more than 40 first-team All-Americas.
"Coach knows how to talk to each person so that they hear it and understand it and put things into action," says Matson. "I may be biased because we are similar, but she has a very good balance of relentlessness and no mercy. She's here to mentor, be a coach, be like a mother figure and help raise these girls and empower strong women like she always talks about. She does a really good job of making sure that we're okay, and that we're learning and growing and confident, while also knowing this is business, we're here to take care of stuff.
"She's hard on me and I want her to be. Coach knows she can talk to me more directly about certain things than other people. She can come to me or I can go to her and we just talk out anything. Whether it's what's best for the team, what we need in pregame practice, what we want for postgame food, we have a very open line of communication, which I am thankful and respect her for."
About that select group of all-time greats Matson has played her way into. What does hearing her name on that list mean to her?
"I don't think it will ever become normal; I don't even know how to react because it's hard to wrap my head around how people talk about what I've done but I'm proud. It makes me happy to see we have basketball players and soccer players, and then there's hockey, like that wouldn't have happened 10 years ago, so it's good for our sport.
"And then the other side is I don't think Coach Shelton or I will ever be satisfied. I want to come out this season and make it completely undeniable, my goal is for there to be no question who the best to ever do it was. I'm not saying that to be cocky, but that is my dream. I'm chasing that dream of being the best with my teammates, which means I am bringing awareness to my university and to our field hockey program. I will never be satisfied. Okay, I'm mentioned in the same breath as those other greats. But what else can I do while I'm here to make sure I stay there and our program is remembered, and my five years here are remembered? That's my motivation."
The playing life of a collegiate athlete is finite, even in the highly unusual circumstances in which a player gets a fifth and final season.
Six regular-season home games and hopefully a couple NCAA Tournament games are the final times you will get to say, 'I went to beautiful Karen Shelton Stadium and saw Erin Matson play for North Carolina.' Don't regret 10, 20, 30 years from now when you look back and wish you did.
'You don't want to miss the entertainment,' Matson wrote in advance of this weekend's games on her weekly blog for the local radio station.
She's right, of course, but you also don't want to miss history.
Carolina Field Hockey 2022 Home Games
September 2 vs. Princeton (5 p.m.)
September 4 vs. Penn (1:30 p.m.)
September 23 vs. Wake Forest (4 p.m.)
October 14 vs. Syracuse (3 p.m.)
October 21 vs. Virginia (4 p.m.)
October 23 vs. St. Joseph's (2 p.m.)
Players Mentioned
Midfielder/Forward
/ Field Hockey
Forward
/ Field Hockey
Forward/Midfielder
/ Field HockeyUNC Field Hockey: Carolina Rallies to Top Eagles, 2-1
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FH: Carolina Rallies to Top Eagles, 2-1
Sunday, September 28
UNC Volleyball: Tar Heels Open ACC Play with Sweep of Wake Forest
Saturday, September 27
Carolina Insider - Interview with Derek Dixon (Full Segment) - September 26, 2025
Friday, September 26