St. Joseph's Tyler Matakevich dives over Ansonia's defense to score a touchdown during Saturday's Class S State Football Championship game at Rentschler Field in East Hartford on December 11, 2010. Photo: Lindsay Niegelberg / Connecticut Post
Former St. Joseph standout Tyler Matakevich gave his verbal commitment to Temple today.
“Oh my God,” the 6-foot-1, 213-pound linebacker said. “I’m so happy to finally get this done after all that hard work. It’s finally paid off.”
Matakevich was a two-time all-state player who led the Hogs to back-to-back state championship victories in 2009-10. Temple, coached by Connecticut native Steve Addazio, was hot on his trail after a stand-out season at Milford Academy.
Matakevich said he impressed Temple and a number of colleges at a postseason college combine a few days after Thanksgiving. “It was probably the best day off football in my life,” he said. “Everything went great after that.”
He took a visit to Philadelphia and said he loved the atmosphere and the close-knit relationship with the players and coaches.
“I love everything about Temple,” he said. “It’s in downtown Philly but the biggest part is the coaches. The coaches make you feel at home. Players are awesome, it was so cool to hang out with them.”
Temple visited with Matakevich today and left with his commitment. He will start classes on Jan. 17.
Matakevich said his postgrad year at Milford Academy in New Berlin, N.Y. made all the difference. He started every game at linebacker.
“It paid off for me mentally, physically,” he said. “Milford makes you a football player. I can’t thank Coach (Bill) Chaplick and all the coaches at Milford and all my coaches at St. Joseph… Everyone who helped me out. I can’t thank them enough.
“I’ll definitely be a learning experience. Going in now in the spring semester gives me a good jump on every one else coming in next season. I went to Milford, I know what it takes to play college ball a little bit I’m going in there to compete.”
Congratulations Tyler! You have earned this.
Way to go Ty! Chase your dreams!
TEMPLE IS GETTING A VERY GOOD PLAYER. BEST OF LUCK
Congratulations Tyler,
Well-deserved. I have watched you be a great leader at SJHS. My son who plays at SJ now looked up to you as you gave him some great advice on how to lead. Best of luck at Temple.
Great kid and a phenomenal player.Temple is getting a very good player and even better person. I wish you all of the best.
Dobbs is now a Temple Owl, too. Interesting.
It shows how much talent SJ had with Tyler Check Delavecchio record without him
How did UConn lose Dobbs to Temple? I don’t get that switch for Montrell. Anyone have the true story? I heard academic standing issues with not enough credits, but that can’t be true if Temple can admit him.
Wasn’t Dobbs going to Marshall?
Dells record started on the up when he got out of the wing T 6 years ago. Tyler and that great class helped, but the sub par record was mainly a result of a small school in a big school league. If SJ was in the SWC or the NVL I’m sure his record would have been well over 500.
Congrats Ty!! Best of luck
Dobbs is able to go to Temple because they can accept partial qualifiers. Marshall was never 100%
st.joes coach “built team” for his kid ole know nothing,thats why he got out of wing T
St Joes would have been good in any league but so would the top part of the SWC. Pomp scrimmaged St Joes two years in a row in 2009-2010 and they split. St Joes killed them.in 2010 and Pomp beat them up pretty badly in 2009. Good teams are good teams no matter what league you play in!! FCIAC wasn’t all that strong thisbyear either.
I didnt know that a powerful SJ franchise would want to compete in the swc They are constantly comparing themselves to that league No team in any league will ever make more excuses than SJ all you have to do is read the articles.Just read ans see what crybabies they are
Sj is overrated
How can they be cry babies? The entire state knew the drop off that the team would have. Tough to win games with graduating 21/22 starters. Anyways @Svatiksupporters Stratford High is like 6-44 in the last 5 years so give it a rest. But all that aside congrats to Tyler
My senior year in Fall of 03 we went 2-9 and smacked Tom Bennewitz and Weston 28-3 in the preseason. They were top half of the SWC that year. Not saying Masuk and the top of the SWC isn’t good but there is no doubt that the bottom of the FCIAC would be a .500 team or better in the SWC, and that Masuk would have atleast one loss a year in the FCIAC. Sure, the FCIAC was down this year, but it has been the cream of the crop for the past 15 years in football and basketball
The exact reason why they are crybabies is because everyone in the stste knew they wouldn t be good because they told everybody that. Stratford doesnt cry or recruit , if Svatik was at sj they would have twice as many wins
@19 you are just plain ignorant.
SJ recruits and provides athletic tuition aid to Stratford kids who can play. After losing Matakevich’s class, they knew they’d be down so they raided hard and have ton of Stratford kids in current freshmen class.
Every high school has its ups and downs depending how strong each class is. Ty’s class happened to be very gifted in Football, Hockey and Lacrosse. Was it because all the players were from Stratford? Sure you could say the key players were from Startford but all of them had previous ties to SJ. It took a team to accomplish what they did not one individual player. Ultimately its the parents decision on where there child will attend high school. If they feel SJ is the best option both educationally and athletically then so be it. I’m a Stratford parent and choose to send my sons to SJ for that same reason. Best of luck Ty!!
stratford high has no one to blame but themselves for stratford kids going to st joes. coaching has been terrible since czekaj left and the facilities are terrible. worst weight room and field in the state. i blame the AD he should get a coach in there that knows what he is doing and kids would want to play there again no one wants to play there anymore especially after watching what bunnell did to them last year. svatik needs to do at least be competitive this year.
Bunnell seems to do just fine with whoever wants to go to SJ.Make sure you know it is Stratford High who is complaining . Bunnell just keeps winning withiut crying.
And they receive zero credit for being a 2 high school town, instead everyone says they have so much talent ???????? Go figure. Bunnell is a high school football gem.They win and you hear nothing ffrom their coaching staff!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Chris, no SJ cannot provide athletic scholarships.
They can’t give athletic scholarships but they still do! In sure the bball player they have this year just showed up at their doorstep
Look just admit it, there’s ways to get these kids to get into your school, everyone does it. If its happening in the college level it can happen at the HS level.
All the private schools can recruit and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s in the rules and they’re entitled to do what the want but don’t act like cause you’re a good Christian school you do everything right.
Besides for your two private schools st joes and trinity, whats your best public school, Harding or BPT CT cause I’ll take the NVL schools and ride with them vs the FCIAC
Crosby, Wilby, torrington, HC, Watertown, St Paul all pretty good this year
Are you an Ansonia fan talking about St. Joes recruiting? I could have sworn your best player played pop warner in Waterbury.