UNC field hockey completes dream ending, wins NCAA title in Erin Matson’s first season as coach

Brian Matson and some other North Carolina field hockey parents gathered on Sunday like they normally do before home matches, there in their usual spot to greet the Tar Heels while they made their way from the locker room to the field. This time, though, there were a few notable differences.

For one, it was the afternoon of the national championship, and another finale between UNC and Northwestern. And also, there was a throng of people all around. Students had been lined up outside Karen Shelton Stadium for more than an hour. The 900 Carolina blue seats were all pretty much filled. So, too, was any space to stand on a small hill, or along the fence bordering the field.

“I went to a Northwestern dad and I was like, is this an SEC or ACC championship game in football?” Matson said. “Like, this is field hockey. He was like, ‘I know, isn’t this great?’ So it felt like a Power Five, championship football game.

“Just, tinier.”

Indeed, a rare kind of crowd — 3,200 was the official number — gathered here on Sunday for a rare kind of moment: the culmination of the latest installment of The Erin Matson Show: Season One. Or was it, Season Six? For almost a year now, Erin Matson, daughter of Brian and his wife, Jill, had been at the center of arguably the greatest story in college athletics.

Like a Hollywood script

The gist of that story, if it were to be pitched to a Hollywood producer: What happens when the best field hockey player in the country — arguably the best American college player in the history of the sport — graduates one month and, at the end of the next, becomes the head coach of her old college team? What sort of hijinks ensue? What sort of challenges? What sort of pressure?

How does it end?

Well, in the case of Erin Matson, it ended here on Sunday with another national championship. Her fifth, since arriving at UNC as a teenage phenom in 2018. As a record-setting forward, Matson helped lead the Tar Heels to four national championships, including one last year when she scored the winning goal with 79 seconds remaining against Northwestern.

And then here the Tar Heels were again on Sunday, in another championship match against the Wildcats. UNC’s greatest disadvantage, compared to a year ago? It no longer had Matson, the player. This time, she stood on the sideline, trying to project an air of calm, trying to keep her hands warm in her pockets, trying not to show that, at times, they were shaking with nerves.

And nerves there were aplenty. The Tar Heels and Wildcats played a scoreless first half and then traded goals in the third quarter, with UNC striking first and Northwestern tying it 11 minutes later. Then came a scoreless fourth quarter, and two scoreless overtimes — goalkeepers from both teams making extraordinary saves — and then it was down to a penalty shootout.

Penalty shootouts in field hockey work like they do in soccer. They come with built-in drama and pressurized moments that are not for the weak-willed or weak-hearted. The first round consists of five players from each team taking turns going one-on-one against the goalie, and suddenly UNC trailed 2-1 halfway through that first round and Northwestern had a chance to put it away.

But then Katie Dixon tied it. Dixon is also a member of Team U.S.A., like Matson was before she gave up her Olympic dreams — or at least, put them on pause — when she became UNC’s head coach. After Dixon scored, Maddie Kahn, the Tar Heels’ goalkeeper, saved three consecutive shots. That allowed Ryleigh Heck to score the decisive goal, sending her teammates into a frenzy to mob her and sending Matson, eventually, into happy tears.

‘I like pressure’

At last she could breathe. For months this really had been The Erin Matson Show, with stories about her in national publications and segments about her on national TV. And not just the channels no one watches or the ones buried somewhere deep on the cable roster, but on the news and morning shows on CBS and NBC.

It was a national story, this 23-year-old head coach of her old team and former teammates; this recent college grad tasked with maintaining the standard of one of the greatest dynasties in college athletics. Imagine the responsibility that came with it. Imagine the weight. Imagine what it must’ve been like Sunday for Matson, waiting for a penalty shootout to decide whether this season would end with the ultimate finish, or if it’d be remembered for coming up just short.

Was there relief, amid the jubilation? Relief, when she watched Heck’s shot break through?

“I would be lying if I said no,” Matson said. “But you guys know I like pressure. We all do. We all have something a little wrong with us. And we thrive off of it.

“But it’s a privilege every day to put on the Carolina jersey, hat, uniform, quarter zip whatever you want to call it and represent the school. So we love the pressure. We thrive off of moments like this and sold-out stadiums and high intensity and sudden-death shootouts.

“But yeah, it’s nice to be able to sit back and say, ‘OK, I don’t need to plan practice Monday.’”

Karen Shelton’s ‘incredible pride’

In a way it had to end this way, because when has Matson ever experienced failure when the stakes were at their greatest? In 2021, perhaps, but injuries cost her games that year and Northwestern, UNC’s fiercest national field hockey rival, ended the Tar Heels’ season in the NCAA tournament.

Outside of that, there were the four national championships. The five ACC championships. The five ACC player of the year honors. Matson was an All-American every year, and a three-time national player of the year — the first to do that since her college coach, Karen Shelton, whose origin story at UNC included driving the team van to road games and making an annual salary of $7,700.

Instant classic! See photos of Erin Matson and UNC field hockey win national championship

Shelton attended every home game this season and was there in Charlottesville, too, when UNC won its sixth consecutive ACC championship. She was here on Sunday, watching from a balcony overlooking the field at the stadium named in her honor and when it came time for the shootout she wasn’t sure it was going to happen, this ending thousands had turned out to see.

“I thought we didn’t have a chance when it got to shootout, to be honest with you,” she said.

And she thought that not due to a lack of faith in her successor but because of the reputation of Northwestern’s goalie. But then here Shelton was in the aftermath, posing for pictures and hugging Matson and others she used to coach and it had to be striking, taking in this kind of moment after she’d built this program from the ground up, and now watching what it’d become after 42 years.

“It’s just incredible pride,” Shelton said, noting the memorable atmosphere for Matson’s first game as head coach, back in late August. Of the increased attention surrounding field hockey, Shelton said, “Some of it has been because of the interest in this hire of a 23-year-old girl that just graduated. And you know, her savvy with social media.

“And she’s done a remarkable job with not only coaching our team but promoting our sport. So I’m proud on so many different levels. Of her, the team, the moms and dads, the culture that we’ve established here. I’m proud of that, and it will continue to grow under her guidance.”

‘Go win a national championship’

When she retired last December, Shelton was among those who advocated for Matson to succeed her. Matson had long earned Shelton’s trust, but had to prove herself to Bubba Cunningham, the UNC athletics director. The first time Matson met with Cunningham to broach the idea of becoming head coach came in August 2022, before her final season.

Cunningham was understandably skeptical of the then 22-year-old in front of him.

“Go win a national championship,” he told her. “Then we’ll talk.”

A few months later, she did. And two months after that, Cunningham presented her with an offer letter. Late Sunday afternoon, with long shadows covering the field, Cunningham stood off to the side while the Tar Heels celebrated their 11th national championship in field hockey.

Had he ever hired a coach who’d gone on to win a national title in their first season?

“We came close in basketball,” he said, referring to the Tar Heels’ run to the national championship game, which included a victory against Duke in the Final Four in Mike Krzyzewski’s final game, in 2022. This, though, was indeed a first: a 23-year-old rookie head coach celebrating with her old teammates after another moment of triumph.

“I mean, the maturity level,” Cunningham said. “We always talk about the maturity level of Erin. But the maturity level of the team to be able to respect (her), and do what they’ve done, is incredible.”

Matson is also the first to win a national title both as a player and a coach for UNC.

‘It’s been a reward’

The journey wasn’t without its challenges or moments of levity. When Matson gathered her team after she became head coach, the first question after her introductory speech was what her players should call her: Coach, or Erin? She had to move out of her old place, a house she shared with teammates, and split up the bills. Another player moved into her old room, and still Venmoes her rent once a month, sometimes mentioning in practice she’ll have the money soon.

And then there was the pressure. The enormous, unending pressure that not only came with following Shelton, but came with following Shelton at 23-years-old, knowing that anything less than a national championship would be viewed as a failure, fair or not. That was all part of the story, the reasons why the networks came to town and why field hockey, a sport that’s long played out in the shadows, without much national attention, entered into a brighter spotlight.

“It’s part of my job,” Matson said of dealing with the attention and that was just one more challenge she embraced, along with all the others. She welcomed the craze, the cameras, the stories, and “to have seen this season completely explode nationally, it’s been a reward.”

And now on Sunday came the ultimate ending to the greatest story in college sports. After a long postgame press conference, Matson made her way back onto the field and lingered with her players and their parents and anyone else who wanted to stick around. Some of them cut pieces of the net from the goal where UNC had scored the game-winner.

Matson’s shirt was damp, after she couldn’t escape some celebratory dunking of some sort. Her eyes were red and bleary with emotion. Her dad was walking around with a permanent smile, a look of pride that wasn’t going to wear off anytime soon. He felt it, too — what Erin felt.

“Almost like a relief,” he said.

He and his wife were sticking around on Sunday night for a victory celebration, one that’d been almost a year in the making. They planned to drive back home to Pennsylvania on Monday. And then the next visit down, he said, “We can actually sit with our daughter and relax, and talk.”

There hadn’t been much time for that in the haze of the past 11 months. Now it was all over, with kind of dramatic ending that somehow managed to meet the moment, if not exceed it.