On Jan. 7, the Massachusetts women’s soccer team announced the fifth head coach in the program’s history when Ed Matz, a former coach at Northeastern, was appointed the position.
Matz, the 2009 Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year, is coming to the sidelines for the Minutewomen in 2010 after two of his best seasons at the helm of the Huskies. In 2009, he led Northeastern to a 12-4-3 overall record and a CAA regular season title with a 7-1-3 conference record. In 2008, the Huskies advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament after winning the CAA Championship.
“I’m very excited to come to University of Massachusetts because it’s certainly a school and university with a great education and also puts a great deal of emphasis on all of the athletic programs across the board, including women’s soccer,” Matz said.
After Jim Rudy retired in the summer of 2009, the opening at UMass was one that caught the eye of Matz, but the timing was not right.
“This is a job I had interest in this past summer, it was just a little too close to my season at Northeastern and I just didn’t feel comfortable leaving my program at that time,” Matz said. “At the conclusion of my season I renewed my interest in the position.”
With the success of the Minutewomen this past season – their first trip to the Atlantic 10 Tournament since 2004 – under interim head coach Angela Napoli, Matz sees great potential on the new team. With 20 years of coaching experience at Northeastern – nine seasons as Northeastern’s mens coach and 11 seasons as the women’s coach – and numerous winning seasons, Matz knows the commitment it takes to win and plans to bring a new level of commitment to UMass.
“One of the first things that we want to implement is that it is a 12 month commitment to playing at the Division 1 level and that they have to commit a great deal of their time to give themselves a chance to get back to the tournament,” he said.
Matz also plans on implementing a new practice style to get his players to play more competitively come game time.
“I love to have a competitive type of practice that will carry over into games,” Matz said. “A lot of our focus is just to try and bring out the competitiveness and desire to succeed in our players and also when you have a competitive practice it is a fun practice.”
As well as being named the 2009 CAA Coach of the Year, Matz was named the America East Coach of the Year in 2000 and 2002 as the head coach of Northeastern’s men’s program. In his tenure at Northeastern, Matz posted a combined 182-165-41 as the men’s and women’s coach.
Jeffrey R. Larnard can be reached at [email protected]. Adam Miller can be reached at [email protected].
