The accolades keep rolling in for Kolton Matson.
The Lake Stevens High School quarterback was named the 2023-24 Gatorade Washington Football Player of the Year on Wednesday.
“Very honored to be named Gatorade (Player of the Year),” Matson posted Thursday morning on X. “Thank you to all my coaches, friends, family and community for getting me to this point!”
Matson, a junior, set a single-season program record with 49 TD passes while leading the Vikings to a 13-1 record and their second consecutive Class 4A state championship in the fall. He finished with 3,388 passing yards on a 66.9% completion rate and added five rushing TDs.
“Kolton is a talented player that you watched grow and develop as the season went on,” Jackson coach Mason Siddick said in a release from Gatorade. “He’s a big reason the Vikings repeated this year. You could tell that Kolton really put the team on his back.”
Matson volunteers locally as a youth football coach and carries a 3.52 grade-point average in the classroom.
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound standout is a three-star recruit, according to 247sports.com. He was named the The Herald’s 2023 Football Player of the Year and has started in the past three 4A state championship games.
Matson is the second straight Lake Stevens player to win the award, joining 2022-23 selection Jayden Limar, and the third since Jacob Eason won it in 2015-16. He’s also the fourth Snohomish County product to earn the honor over the past decade.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport.
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