Soccer
Favorite athlete: Yaya Toure
Favorite team: Manchester City
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning a Super Y National Championship
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During a club game, one of my teammates completely tripped the referee and got into a heated but hilarious two-minute argument with the ref.
Music on iPod: Mostly Imagine Dragons
Future plans: College and hopefully medical school
Words to live by: ‘The glass is half full.’
One goal before turning 30: Hit the lottery.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love to read.
By Mary Jane Souder
Julian Antal could safely be called a late bloomer on the soccer field.
As a freshman and sophomore, the Council Rock South senior played for the junior varsity, and there was nothing to suggest Antal was on his way to becoming one of the league’s elite players.
But that’s exactly what happened.
Antal, a first team all-league selection, recently earned a spot on the prestigious 2012 Pennsylvania All-State squad.
“Teams had no answer for him,” Rock South coach Alan Nicholl said. “He’s so strong. He’s unusually big (6-3), and he’s so quick, and he’s very, very good with his feet.
“We designed most of our offensive schemes around his athleticism. He was unplayable, absolutely unplayable in some games.”
How good was the senior midfielder?
“We’d have a long throw-in or a corner kick, and it got to midseason, and some of the players were like, ‘Coach, do you think we should use him as a decoy and go to somebody else?’ I said, ‘We’ll start doing that when they prove they can defend him,’” Nicholl said. “There were three guys on him, and my guys would look at me and say, ‘Should we still give it to him?’ I said, ‘Yes.’
“Even with three players on him, he was still winning the headers. Other teams didn’t have an answer. They knew how good he was, and they still couldn’t find a way to stop him.”
Antal was the team’s top scorer with 14 goals from his center mid position.
“He never played up top,” Nicholl said. “For a center midfielder, that’s pretty impressive, particularly in our league. We don’t play bad teams.”
Antal’s ascent to the top of his sport is an interesting one.
The senior standout began playing soccer as a youngster and went through the usual progression, beginning with community league and then playing travel. On the club circuit, he played for FC Bucks and, more recently, Princeton Soccer Association.
When he was a freshman, he stood all of 5-4. A year later, he was 5-10. A six-inch growth spurt in one year is bound to create problems.
“I got injuries from growing,” Antal said. “I actually got stress fractures, and my muscles pulled off my bone because my bones were growing so quickly.
“Because of that, I altered my style of play. Being injured, I couldn’t play as much, so I wasn’t in form, and I wasn’t playing as well. I couldn’t keep up my fitness or anything like that.”
Antal’s first two years of high school soccer were slowed by the growth spurt.
“He didn’t exactly jump off the map as a young high school player,” Nicholl said. “But he was always very skillful, very good with his feet.”
As a junior, Antal found himself in the starting lineup for the varsity.
“Once I stopped growing as much, I gained back all the other stuff like my form and my fitness, and I could play at my best level,” he said.
“He did really well,” Nicholl said. “He was incredibly versatile, and he really started to use his size. He was (growing) into his body and was probably one of our top players.”
“He ended up with a concussion and was out for a couple of weeks and struggled getting back after that.”
With the concussion and his growth spurt nothing but a distant memory this year, Antal was a force to be reckoned with on the soccer field.
“My height helps me with the aerial balls,” Antal said. “With my height and because my body is bigger than most other kids, I’m a little bit stronger than most people, and that kind of helps.”
The Golden Hawks found themselves a fierce battle for the SOL National Conference crown, eventually finishing second to Neshaminy.
“Things don’t always go the way you want them to, but we’re proud of ourselves even finishing second,” Antal said. “Even the race for first place was good.
“As a senior, it was a lot more emotional than the years before. You have a lot more drive to do the best you can. You want to be a role model for the younger players on the team, and you want go set the standard for how they should play.”
Antal refuses to take credit for his ascent to the top of his sport.
“A lot of my success comes from my teammates,” he said. “I initially didn’t think I would do as well as I did.
“My other center midfielder, Chris Spadaro, and I kind of (fed) off each other. My weaknesses were his strengths, so it worked out well. A lot of how well I did came from the leadership, the inspiration and the push of our coach.”
This past weekend, Antal competed in the national tournament in Florida with his Princeton club team. His squad advanced to the semifinals.
Not surprisingly, Antal has piqued the interest of more than a few college coaches.
“I’ve had college coaches asking about his success,” Nicholl said. “I think Julian’s learning curve if he continues this growth – I don’t mean physically, I mean with his confidence. If he continues like this, lord knows where he could end up.
“Unlike kids that are 10, 11, 12 years old and have a lot of success, Julian’s only recently come into this boom of confidence and playing and technique. I think he’s one of these kids that’s going to slide under the radar and be a big success.”
Antal hopes to play soccer at the collegiate level but has his sights set well beyond soccer.
“Obviously, academics are the most important part of a student’s life,” he said. “You can play soccer for so long, but you have the rest of your life to deal with.”
Although still undecided, the Rock South senior is considering Delaware, Millersville and Duquesne. He plans to pursue a premed major. He admits he has always had an interest in the human body, but his fascination with medicine was piqued when he was under the weather for three weeks last year with an illness that was never diagnosed.
“They couldn’t figure out what it was, so I was researching what it was – what can I find out?” Antal said. “That led me to a point where I decided I wanted to pursue a career in medicine because it interested me so much.”
An honors student, Antal’s course load includes honors anatomy as well as AP Biology, AP Statistics and AP Calculus.
“Julian is a great kid,” said Nicholl, who teaches Antal in Honors Anatomy. “He’s top drawer and really nice. He’s special.
“He’s definitely one of the top five players to come out of Council Rock South, and we have had some good players here.”
