This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
06/18/2024 12:04 PMMatt Prato is graduating from high school as one of the more well-rounded students, athletes, and people in his class. He has done it all on the back of hard work, dedication, and a positive perception of anything that life throws his way.
The North Branford resident and Notre Dame-West Haven Class of 2024 graduate played baseball, basketball, and soccer before trying out lacrosse around fifth grade. After not making the cut for the Green Knights' basketball team, he decided to join the indoor track team as a 600 and 800 runner.
Yet this senior year as a captain for the soccer team as a netminder, squad steward for track, and midfielder on the lacrosse turf, Matt led ND-WH to its first ever state crown in soccer and the lax club to the Class LL State Tournament quarterfinals. He equally impressed in the academic field by being named the Class Salutatorian and earning the CIAC scholar-athlete award.
“I credit a lot of my success to starting sports young and also my sister. I would play and practice a lot of sports with her in the yard, and she really helped introduce me to sports,” says Matt, who will also major in Mechanical Engineering at Duke University. “It has also been putting in the extra work outside of school and my teams’ games and practices. I am always shooting the ball around with my friends wherever I can. All of those things added up little by little to my success.”
Through the time on the various turfs, Matt mastered the art of compartmentalizing any errors on the back burner of his memory bank. He also recalls that he used his sophomore setback with hoops to forge a new and more prominent path on the track.
“I improved a lot in my mental game through being a goalie for soccer. I learned that when you give up a goal, you have to put those mistakes aside. Over the years, I have gotten better from getting away from a losing mentality and trying to get my teammates to do that as well,” Matt says. “I also did not dwell on not making the basketball team my sophomore year; I saw it as a chance to turn it into a positive and did that by joining track. That also opened up chances with soccer because I was then able to join a club soccer team in the winter and spend more time studying.”
In graduating at nearly the top of his class, Matt showed the dividends of persistence and undying diligence. While creating special connections with his academic mentors, he grasped the concept that true knowledge reaches far and beyond simply regurgitating facts on paper for a grade.
“It was a great honor to be named Salutatorian of my class; it showed all of my hard work from my first class my freshman year until now paid off,” says Matt. “The opportunities given to me at Notre Dame really helped me, like with learning how to retain and use info learned rather than just spitting it back out on a test. My teachers became like a family to me and knew the importance of my balance of athletics and academics. The academic center here helped me a lot with the college application process, and so did my mom with helping me stay on top of it.”
When Matt and his senior soccer mates stepped onto the campus as freshmen, ND-WH was at arguably one of, if not, the lowest point in the program’s history. From there, they decided it would be only an upward trajectory, and they went from worst to first in four year’s time.
“The seniors came into the soccer team our freshman year and started working out days before the year started,” says Matt. “We knew we wanted to flip this program around after they were 0-15-1 the year before. We became a family and prioritized team chemistry. We put in the preseason work at practices and camps going into this year. We were a strong brotherhood, and we never took any team lightly and made sure to work harder than them.”
ND-WH boys’ soccer Head Coach Noah Wilson adds that Matt knew how to go about things the right way in an interpersonal setting with his teammates as a leader. He also stepped up big on the field and made critical stops when it mattered most for the state champions.
“Matt was an excellent teammate and captain. He always put the team first and sought to make his teammates better. He was encouraging to others and quick to lift them up rather than put them down,” says Wilson. “Throughout the season and especially in the tournament, Matt made crucial saves that kept our team in games, giving us opportunities to win. He was consistent for us and a great leader for our team. Matt also had a great gauge of the team chemistry during practices and games. He knew who needed encouragement and was quick to be proactive in addressing his teammates, embodying the characteristics of a true captain. He will be greatly missed in our program.”
There are always bigger rungs on the ladder to grasp when looking at the grander scope of life, according to Matt, now in the reflection phase of his high school life. He concludes by noting that one can never pass up any chance for something new because there will never be regrets and nothing but gains.
“I learned through my time at Notre Dame that there are bigger things than high school,” says Matt. “I learned the importance of working as a team and collaborating and how it brings about success greater than any individual successes. I also learned through my experience with basketball that when one door shuts then another opens. You also must take advantage of every opportunity because you will learn lessons from each.”