Ed Matz Named Head Coach at UMass

AMHERST, Mass. - Ed Matz, the former Northeastern women's soccer head coach and 2009 Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year, has been named Women's head coach at UMass. He takes over from Angela Napoli, who was appointed head coach for the 2009 season after the retirement of longtime coach Jim Rudy in May of last year.

Matz will be the fifth head coach in the history of the program and will begin his first season on the sidelines with the Minutewomen in the fall of 2010.

"We are very excited to welcome Ed and his family to the UMass Athletics family," UMass Athletic Director John McCutcheon said in a statement. "Ed is a proven winner and brings a great amount of experience to the Minutewomen soccer program. He has a wealth of knowledge in terms of the New England region and has had success on the field as well as in the classroom with his players. We look forward to great success with the women's soccer program."

Matz joins the Minutewomen after fourteen season at Northeastern, where he coach the men's teams from 1996 to 2004 and the women's teams from 1999 to 2009. For six season between 1999 and 2004, he coach both teams.

“I am very excited for the challenge of taking over as head coach at UMass, which has such a rich history of success in women's soccer," said Matz. "My goal is to live up to the team's past accomplishments and to further build off UMass' 2009 Atlantic 10 tournament appearance. Many alumni of the program have gone on to do great things within the sport of soccer and beyond and I look forward to having the student-athletes under my leadership continue this tradition."

Matz is coming off two of the most successful seasons in Northeastern's history. He was tabbed the league's coach of the year in 2009 after guiding the Huskies to their first ever CAA regular season title with a 7-1-3 record in conference play and a 12-4-3 mark overall. In 2008 under his direction, Northeastern won the CAA Championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

In his coaching tenure with the he posted a combined record of 182-165-41. Both teams were struggling when he was named director of soccer in 1999, though it did not take long for him to put them on a winning course. The men's team won 10 or more games in five of its last six seasons with Matz on the sidelines, and in 2002, Northeastern captured its first America East conference title in men's soccer. He was tabbed America East Coach of the Year in both 2000 and 2002.

Matz shifted his attention solely to the NU women's squad in 2005 when the university hired Brian Ainscough to coach the men's program. That same year, the team made the jump to the highly-competitive CAA, and by 2006, Matz had taken the Huskies to their first CAA Tournament.

Matz currently serves as the Head Coach of the Massachusetts U15 Olympic Development Program. He also coached the U18 FC Greater Boston Bolts to a Mass. State Championship in 2007. Matz has his NSCAA National Coaching License and completed his master's degree in Sports Leadership from Northeastern in 2009.

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