HAMPSTEAD, N.C. — Katherine Matuza grew up playing lacrosse with her older sister and has played organized lacrosse for nine years. Her dream was to be able to play lacrosse at the college level and she is now very close to achieving her dream after recently making a verbal commitment to enroll at Barton College in Wilson.

Matuza is 5-foot-3 and plays in the attacking and midfield positions. She is smart, energetic and plays with a great passion for the game. She is great at creating offensive opportunities for herself and for her teammates.

In the 2020-21 season, Matuza took on the huge role of team captain and emphatically led the Topsail Pirates to their first Mideastern Conference championship in their program history. Matuza and her teammates were finally able to put an end to the domination of John T. Hoggard High School in Wilmington, winning all league games in the regular season. This was not easy as they had to endure three years of heartbreak against Wilmington schools which they finally overcame.

Her coach, Courtney Burghardt, said, “Kate is always leading by example and demonstrating qualities of a natural leader. She is the first one on the field and the last one-off the field. She is a very disciplined and determined player. She is very aware of her strengths and weaknesses and doesn’t accept anything less than her best performance. She takes responsibility for her mistakes but works incredibly hard to fix them.”

Matuza in her senior year, asserted her dominance in the way she played leading the team in goal scoring and setting up her teammates multiple times. Matuza’s fantastic season did not go unnoticed as she was named in the StarNews as All Area Girls Lacrosse co-Player of the Year along with Devon Cavanaugh of Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington.

Matuza has also helped the team’s aspirations grow going forward.

“I think the craziest thing is just how far we’ve come and how the goals of the program changed in the past four years,” Matuza said. “We went from just focusing on winning the 3A, to wanting to compete with the Wilmington schools to this year wanting to beat Hoggard and win the championship.”

Even as the focal point of the team, Matuza was quick to thank her teammates especially the freshmen as there were only four seniors on the team stating how much they needed them and her coaches.

Despite losing to the eventual champions, East Chapel Hill High School in Chapel Hill, it did not take away from the unbelievable season Matuza and her teammates had this year. A season where they outperformed all expectations, Matuza said, “We had a season that none of us expected, and it showed just how hard the players and coaches worked. It’s something I’ll bring with me into college, knowing we can work hard and great things can happen.”

While her high school career may be over, her lacrosse career is far from it as she will continue to display her talents at Barton College in Wilson, taking with her qualities of a natural leader, discipline and determination. In the four years Matuza spent at Topsail High School, she led the team in scoring in the freshman and junior seasons.

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