Olivia Matthews was recently honored with the United Soccer Coaches All-American award along with eight other girls from Connecticut. Olivia has had many accomplishments and awards throughout her life, but this award is definitely her most notable. This is also a huge accomplishment for Suffield High School as this is the school’s first girls soccer All-American in 13 years. In Olivia’s soccer career, she has accomplished the following awards: 4x NCCC All Conference, 4x All State, 2x All New England, and 1x All-American.
Olivia Matthews has always been known as an athlete. Olivia was a four sport athlete playing soccer, basketball, cross country, and track throughout her middle school career. As a sixth grader, Olivia was the fastest runner in her class and sixth in the state. After her middle school career ended, she had a decision to make. Olivia’s freshman year she decided to give up cross country for her passion, soccer. In her first two seasons, she was awarded the NCCC All Conference and All State award in both seasons. During her junior season she was awarded All New England, only being one vote shy of the All-American honor.
The fall of 2024 was Olivia’s senior season of soccer. She knew the All-American honor was a possibility, but winning games was Olivia’s priority. “It’s not something I really thought about because I don’t really think about the awards or titles but it definitely was on my mind the last season when I was told it was a possibility. I think it definitely validates the hard work and just like all the hours of training,” Olivia said.
Olivia is continuing soccer in college at Bentley University next year. She is taking all her hard work that she put into her high school career and plans on bringing her mentality and commitment to her new team. When asked about what values she will take into the next chapter at Bentley, Olivia said, “I think the lesson of hard work and not caring about the accolades and caring about the job that needs to be done and winning with the people around me.” She will continue to play soccer in the meantime for CFC, a premier soccer program out of Connecticut.
