For so much of his career, Matthew Maton was just “the high school kid.”
A year ago at the Oregon Twilight meet, Maton endeared himself to the Hayward Field fans when he ran the mile in a time of 3:59.38, to place third in a race that featured some of the top collegiate runners in the country.
Competing unattached, the Bend, Oregon-native became the sixth runner in U.S. history to run a sub-four-minute mile. A University of Oregon commit at the time, that historic performance was supposed to be the preamble to a stellar career as a Duck.
It took a little longer than he would have liked, but Maton has finally broken the mold of being just an elite prep runner. He has evolved into one of Oregon’s top athletes as the NCAA Championships draw near.
“The season started really rocky,” Maton said. “I was full of confidence last year and lost a lot of that for some reason. I don’t quite know why. As I started piling on the races again this year, I’m getting more confident.”
Maton finished fifth in the 1,500-meter run at the NCAA West Regional in Lawrence, Kansas, last weekend, and qualified for the NCAA Championships in the process. With a personal-best time of 3:39.97 this season, Maton is the fifth-fastest 1,500 runner in the nation and owns the best time of any Oregon runner.
Less than a month ago, it looked like Maton might not even make the travel squad to regionals.
After an up-and-down cross country season in the fall, Maton struggled through the first half of the outdoor track season. He didn’t run a race in an Oregon uniform until May 1, and by the time the Oregon Twilight arrived on May 6, he still hadn’t run a time that would be considered fast by Oregon’s standards.
Maton was entered in the 1,500 at the Oregon Twilight, and at the same meet in which he uncorked a record-breaking performance a year prior, he now needed something solid: a time that he could build upon.  
In his third race that week, Maton won with a time of 3:42.68, and one week later ran his PR time of 3:39.97 at the Pac-12 Championships.
“That was kind of the last opportunity to put their best foot forward,” Oregon head coach Robert Johnson said of Maton and several other Oregon athletes following the Twilight.
That performance, along with adjustments to his training workload earlier in the spring, likely extended Maton’s season.
After his sluggish start to the spring, Maton and Oregon associate head coach Andy Powell took a look at Maton’s old training logs. They noticed that during his high school career, he hadn’t done much low intensity training and would go “all-out” during most training sessions.
“So we started adding in more hard work at the end,” Maton said. “Like after a workout, we’ll just do something really hard at the end of it, instead of just calling it a day.”
Maton and fellow Ducks Blake Haney and Sam Parkel all qualified for, and will likely run, the 1,500 at the NCAA Championships on June 8. Parkel ran the fastest time of the three at regionals, and Haney finished third at the NCAA championships last year as a freshman.
But Maton is peaking at the perfect time, and may have the best shot of the three to capture a high finish. 
“I think he’s one of those guys that once he’s in a zone, there’s no stopping him,” Oregon distance runner signee Drew Hunter said  “When he’s on, he’s on, and so it’s cool to see that he’s kind of in a groove right now.”
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