Mattie Hatcher
JUNIOR / PULASKI ACADEMY
OUTSTANDING PLAYER: GIRLS SOCCER
Pulaski Academy junior Mattie Hatcher began learning soccer at the age of 3, and now at 17, her hard work is paying off. She has scored the AllArkansas Preps Outstanding Girls Soccer Player of the Year. “I’m very excited. This was my first year to win this award,” Hatcher said. “It was fun, and the team definitely helped me achieve this. In soccer, my biggest accomplishment is winning Player of the Year, for sure. Making it to the state finals will be behind that.” Hatcher has been an all-state soccer player from 2016-2018, she’s been a part of the allstate all-tournament team in 2016 and 2018 and has scored
139 goals in the past three years on the team. Hatcher has also led her soccer team to the state finals in
2016 and 2018. Hatcher, the youngest of five siblings, comes from a long line of athletes — and that’s only increased her drive to succeed. She said she worked hard to do better than her siblings and that she’s always viewed them as healthy competition. Her soccer skills as a striker have come through years of work and encouragement from her family and especially through her father, Greg Hatcher. “Sports are really fun, but you know, I always tell my kids the work started a long time ago when they were 5 years old and they were putting in all those hours,” Greg Hatcher said. “By the time they get to high school, it shows up all of a sudden like they’ve had a good year, but really, they’ve been working on it for 14 or 15 years. Mattie is a tougher kid — she’s just tough and skilled.” Coach Christian Owen has been working with Mattie since the beginning of her soccer career. “Mattie is a fierce competitor on and off the field, but more importantly, she is just a great kid,” Owen said. “She is respected by her teammates and is one of our leaders on the team.” Owen works with Mattie on broadening her player positions, technical skill set and scoring goals. “You can’t be great at a sport if you don’t love it — and you may not love it every second of the day, but how do you not like something that you get pretty good at after hours of work?” Greg said. “I believe once [the athletes are] done with sports, being a competitor is the single best thing to have on a resume. At the end of the day, we’re competing.”