Soccer
Favorite athlete: Zach Ertz
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Pennridge in double overtime and PK’s to advance into states for the first time in eight years.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I was warming up my punts before a game and I kicked the ball into the crossbar, and it slammed me in the face and I fell down.
Music on playlist: Post Malone, Mac Miller, Luke Combs
Future plans: Major in chemistry at University of Delaware
Words to live by: You can’t live your life in fear.”
One thing people don’t know about me: I was superstitious before every game and needed to eat buttered pasta prior to playing.
By Mary Jane Souder
Participation trophies – everyone’s heard of them.
Those trophies given to all the youngsters on a team, instilling the belief that simply participating is more than enough. It’s not unusual for coaches - especially the competitive ones - to be highly critical of participation trophies.
If Mike Moyer is in that number, the Central Bucks West girls’ soccer coach might want to rethink his position because if it weren’t for participation trophies, he more than likely would not have had Jules Broskey in goal this past soccer season.
Yes, the tougher-than-nails West senior was drawn to soccer by the lure of a participation trophy.
“It all started at my childhood best friend’s house, and she was like, ‘Guess what I got!’ and showed me this tiny gold participation trophy,” Broskey said. “I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I really wanted one, so that day I walked into my house and right away told my parents I wanted to play soccer, and then from that day on I never stopped playing."
And the participation trophy?
"I had it proudly hanging in my room for years," Broskey said. "It’s crazy to think such a small thing impacted my life so much.”
It’s also something close to crazy to try and imagine the 2022 edition of the CB West girls’ soccer team without Broskey in goal. If anyone personified the toughness, the grit, the determination, and – most of all – the heart of this year’s squad, it was Broskey.
“Despite her shoulder injury, she took it upon herself and put the team on her shoulders,” Moyer said. “To go out there and do what she did – she was phenomenal in the postseason. She was phenomenal all four years, but this postseason with her injury and what she was able to do for us was just great.”
What Broskey (more on the injury later) and her teammates accomplished this fall was something close to storybook, earning the 26th seed out of 28 teams in the District 1 4A Tournament and advancing to the district semifinals and following that up with a trip to the quarterfinals of the state.
“Our season started out a little bit rocky – we didn’t even think we would make it into the playoffs,” Broskey said. “We had one game left, and we were like, ‘If we don’t win this, we’re definitely out. If we win it, we might be in,’ so it was insane and crazy.
“We were all so surprised that we kept on winning and we kept on winning, and I think it gave us more and more momentum. With that much of a want from not just me but from my entire team wanting to keep winning, I think we had to put all of our injuries aside and do whatever we could to keep on going.”
The Bucks won three straight road games with the third – in the district quarterfinals - an upset in penalty kicks over archrival and second-seeded Pennridge to secure a state berth.
“I think that was her best game as a Buck,” Moyer said of Broskey. “They pressured the heck out of us – multiple shots, a couple of breakaways, a couple of point-blank shots. She willed us to a win.”
When it came time for PK’s, Broskey had an unusual request.
“Coach Mike came up to me and said, ‘We are shooting second,’ and I looked at him and I think my words were, ‘No, no I’m going second. I want all the pressure on me and not on my teammates,’ and he said, ‘Okay,’” the senior captain said.
West won the coin flip, Broskey went with her gut, and the rest is history.
“Everyone’s dream was just to make it to states,” she said. “None of us had ever done it before, and I think this whole experience was just such a joy ride because we weren’t supposed to win, so we had nothing to lose.”
The mysterious shoulder injury
Broskey, who grew up playing sports in the backyard with older sister Jess, has been playing soccer since she was four or five years old. Her career as a goalie began at a young age, and hers wasn’t a story of ending up in the cage by default. Broskey – a veteran of the club circuit - is strong and athletic, something her coach noticed and suggested she go in goal. It was a natural fit.
“I didn’t start goalkeeper training until I was in sixth grade, so there wasn’t much training in there,” she said. “It was mostly just – I want the ball, I see the ball, and I’m going to do anything I can to get my body in front of it.”
Broskey started several varsity games sophomore year and was the starter as a junior and senior, excelling and earning first team All-SOL Colonial honors both years.
“Jules’ biggest strength is her confidence, and that came because she works extremely hard off the field to be the best,” said Moyer, who coached Broskey the past four years in high school and on the club circuit with PA Rush. “She doesn’t feel pressure in any situation, and that’s what you need in your last line of defense. She’s strong and has the body of a keeper. She’s tall, long arms, athletic build and great hands.”
Broskey’s final high school season was outstanding by any standard but add a shoulder injury that would have sidelined most into the mix, and it was nothing short of remarkable.
“I believe it happened the last game of my junior year for high school, but I didn’t notice the injury for a long time since soccer had ended,” she said. “The mystery of my whole shoulder injury is that there wasn’t one moment like – ‘Oh my gosh, (ouch), my shoulder.’ I think it was just from landing on it multiple times, and because I had so much adrenaline in games, I didn’t even feel the pain until afterwards.”
The senior goalie first realized there was a problem while shooting hoops with friends on New Year’s Eve.
“I shot the basketball, and the second my arm went up, my shoulder completely popped out,” Broskey said. “That was the first time it happened, and then (club) soccer started back up, so when I would put my arm out to dive for a ball, it would immediately pop out and pop back in.
“It was subluxing. It would pop back in, but it would be really tight pain all up in my right shoulder. It really started to affect how I played during club because I’d put my arm out for the ball, and all of a sudden, the ball was behind me and so was my arm. It’s definitely painful, but I just had to be mentally tough to put the pain aside and just keep playing and then deal with the pain afterwards.”
From May to August, Broskey went to physical therapy, and although PT didn’t eliminate the problem (subluxing is defined as the partial dislocation of the bone from a joint), the senior goalie was in net when the season started, and she never left.
“I really just wanted to be able to play my senior year, so as the season kept going on, I kept hitting the ground more, getting hit, and it actually got worse, a lot worse,” she said. “There were nights when I couldn’t sleep because my shoulder was in so much pain.”
By the end of the season, the pain was excruciating.
“I kind of had to put the pain aside,” Broskey said. “I remember the day of our first or second playoff game – I put my arm up to type something and my arm popped out.
“I was like, ‘Oh no, I need to be able to play in this game tonight.’ I just had to rely on adrenaline, and I would take Advil before my games. Toward the end of my season, I would have my athletic trainer ace wrap all over my body. It would come across my chest, down around my shoulder.”
The training room became a second home to Broskey.
“For the second half of the season or at least the last third, she was in the training room more than she was on the practice field,” Moyer said. “She’s the epitome of what a CB West girls’ soccer player is. She’s tough, she’s mentally tough, and she’ll run through a wall for the team.”
Broskey – a respected captain and leader - will also take ownership if she’s at fault, which she rarely was, but there was what is now referred to as ‘the incident’ that occurred in the West’s district opener at Hatboro-Horsham.
“We controlled the whole game – they really didn’t have a good shot in the run of play,” Moyer said. “With less than a minute to play, we were winning 1-0.
“I’m cleaning up the sideline, getting ready for the bus ride home. They kick a ball 40 yards kind of high in the air into the box. It takes a bounce, I’m waiting for Jules to come from her line and get the ball. She stays on her line.”
“I was waiting for the ball to bounce since the turf was wet, and I didn’t know how bad the skip would be,” Broskey said. “Unfortunately for me, a girl was running in, and I hadn’t seen her until too late, so when I made my run out for the ball, she got to it first and scored to tie it.
“I knew I messed up and should have come off my line way sooner. I definitely paid for my mistake because for the first time all year, I didn’t deliver the hit, I got hit – very hard.”
Moyer admits he lit into Broskey in the team meeting prior to OT.
“Her eyes when she looked at me – I don’t think she could believe what I was saying to her,” the Bucks’ coach said.
“He’s never done that before,” Broskey said. “I completely deserved everything he said and his tone toward me because I am hard on myself as a player and knew that was my ball and my mistake.
“I even talked to him after the game (the Bucks won in OT) and told my team I took full responsibility. Luckily my teammates had my back. As for me, I hate messing up. It was rare for me to make a mistake like that, so that the one time I did - I knew I needed to own up to it.”
After the OT win, Moyer tried to think of how many goals Broskey allowed over the course of her career that were actually her fault.
“I’m sure there might have been one that may have been, but she was just so solid back there and the one person I knew I could count on,” the Bucks’ coach said. “If all the other 10 players let me down, Jules was there to save me. This was the one time that she didn’t When that goal went in, my mind just went red. We call it ‘the incident.’ Jules is unbelievable, unbelievable. I’m going to miss her.”
A new chapter on the horizon
Ask Broskey what stands out most about her high school soccer experience, and she has an immediate response
“I think it was the heart that our team has,” she said. “Our coach would always say – we’re not the most talented team, but we have the most heart. That’s what wins games. We might not have the most talented players, but hard work beats talent, and so does heart because if we didn’t have the team chemistry that we had, I don’t think we would have made it this far, but we all knew how much it meant to all of us.”
And that team chemistry, according to the senior captain, is and has been an integral part of the program.
“I think our program has always been – at least in my four years – we’ve always been so tight, and I could thank my coaches for that and just the past leaders of our program,” Broskey said. “I just think that’s how our program runs. We run with a lot of heart. There’s always a lot of heart, and if there’s not heart, it’s not CB West soccer.”
No one better exemplified that heart than Broskey, and with an MRI scheduled in mid-December, she may at last receive a diagnosis and treatment plan for her shoulder injury.
“I wanted to hold off on getting an MRI before the season because if I got an MRI and it came back as a severe tear – I didn’t know if I’d be allowed to play,” she said. “I just wanted to do everything I could without getting the MRI beforehand just so I would be able to play, not have the doctors telling me not to because playing my senior year was the most important thing to me, and I also didn’t want to let my teammates down.
“I don’t really know what to expect, but I knew from the beginning that PT wasn’t going to cure me, and I don’t think it ever will because of the severity of the injury.”
Broskey, who buses tables at a local restaurant, has actually been sent home from work on several occasions because the pain was unbearable.
“I can’t carry anything with my shoulder, I can’t carry trays of anything, so it definitely affected my life outside of soccer,” she said.
As for her future plans, Broskey has been accepted into her top choice – the University of Delaware – where she will major in chemistry with her sights set on a career in the pharmaceutical or medical field.
Soccer will not be part of her future, marking the end of a marvelous career that began with a youngster’s wish to simply get a participation trophy.
“I’ve always been told there comes a time in each athlete’s career when you know that your body can’t take it and that your time is up, and I think that time has come for me, especially with my shoulder and just with other factors,” she said. “I don’t think the collegiate level is for me. I don’t think my body will be able to take it anymore.”
As for no longer playing a sport she loves, Broskey will undoubtedly handle it just fine.
“It’s going to be definitely weird,” she said. “I have been playing sports since – I think I did gymnastics when I was two or three years old.
“I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I think I’ll be able to enjoy my time and let my body recover from all these years. Also, I’ll still be in the sports atmosphere. I’ll be at football games, and I want to come back and see my old teammates play soccer too.”
(Action photos courtesy of Tracy Valko for SuburbanOneSports.com: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/p842428491)
