"As a player, it grounded me. It put me in my element," says Matson. She was a player just two seasons ago. "And last year, in my first year, I just did it as a way to deal with the nerves and pressure and everything. It was what I knew when I took the field before a game."
Matson's pre-game ritual is the same one she had as a player: 30 pulls, where she quickly drags the ball backward behind her, and a game of 'around the world,' where she attempts to dribble the ball on every single angle of the head of the stick to see how many times she can consistently maintain contact without dropping the ball.
"COACH, I WANT to be head coach after you retire," a 22-year-old Matson, said to Karen Shelton during a phone call in the summer of 2022. "I'm still playing this season. And we're going to win. My plans to apply for the head coaching position won't get in the way of the team. But I want to be head coach."
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