As sweat drips down senior and varsity soccer captain Nektario Athanasiou’s face, he dribbles the ball up the field, aims, and takes a shot on Mount St. Joseph’s goalie.  The crowd goes wild, and he watches the point appear on the scoreboard. The score is now 1-0.

“I just was really happy and thought we deserved another goal,” Athanasiou said about the goal on Sept. 24 which lead to a 2-0 victory.

Athanasiou scored 14 goals this season as center attacking midfielder. “During games I just focus on needing to touch the ball as much as possible to help my team,” Athanasiou said.

His favorite aspect of soccer is that it is a game of skill and speed, which challenges him.

Athanasiou has been playing soccer since the age of four, when his two older brothers introduced him to the game.

“Both [of] my brothers play soccer and one is semi-professional, so they’re both good mentors,” Athanasiou said.

The soccer team meets every week day for two hours to practice. “During practice I just think to push myself and to work hard, that way I can get more fit,” Athanasiou said.

“I’ve been playing with [Athanasiou] for two years. He’s a good player with really good skills,” junior and varsity center back Jake Dengler said.

In addition to playing on the varsity team, Athanasiou plays for Baltimore Bays Blues for seven years.

“Baltimore Bays is really competitive, and we play whenever we don’t have our high school’s soccer season,” Athanasiou said.

Athanasiou has been on the varsity team since his freshman year but took his junior year off to play in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy.

According to the U.S Soccer Development Academy, the “program provides the optimum developmental environment for the nation’s top youth soccer players, coaches, and referees by emphasizing development through quality training and limited, meaningful competition.”

Although Athanasiou has not decided where he wants to go to college, he does plan to play in college.

“I’m looking at York College of Pennsylvania, Wesley College, and McDaniel College which are all D-3,” Athanasiou said.

According to Dengler, “with [Athanasiou’s] leaving, we’ll need another player to step up to the plate.”

Sydney Kirwan is an In-Depth Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.