Staff Directory

Michael Antoniewicz

Title:
Head Coach
Email:

In his first season at the helm in 2025, Antoniewicz guided USC Upstate to a 5-11-3 overall record and a 2-3-2 mark in Big South Conference play, improving the Spartans’ overall win total by two victories from the previous season. Upstate returned to the Big South Men’s Soccer Championship for the first time since 2022 and advanced to the tournament semifinals for the first time in three seasons.

The Spartans made their return to postseason play in emphatic fashion. After earning the No. 5 seed, Upstate traveled to fourth-seeded UNC Asheville for the opening round and earned a 5-1 victory behind a historic four-goal performance from Oskar Kaufmann. The victory sent the Spartans to the Big South semifinals, where their season concluded against nationally ranked and top-seeded High Point. Antoniewicz’s first season also featured several signature victories, highlighted by a 2-1 road win over South Carolina and a 3-2 victory over crosstown rival Wofford. Under Antoniewicz’s direction, five Spartans earned Big South postseason recognition during his debut season. Oskar Kaufmann earned First Team All-Big South honors, while Vitalis Takawira Jr., Jorhan Chopin, Oscar Kelly and Ewan Tomas also received recognition from the conference. Kaufmann finished the season with 11 goals and 23 points, while Takawira Jr. led the Spartans with 10 assists and added three goals for 16 points.

Antoniewicz joins the Spartan program following a six-season stint as the head coach at Coker University (Hartsville, S.C.), where he led the Cobras to a pair of SAC Championships, capturing the regular season crown this past season and the tournament title in 2021. He's accrued 51 victories helming the Cobra program while leading the team to a United Soccer Coaches or NCAA Division II Super-Regional ranking in five of his six seasons as a head coach.

In 2024, Antoniewicz and his staff garnered United Soccer Coaches DII Southeast Region Coaching Staff of the Year honors after leading Coker to a 15-3-1 record, going 9-1-1 in SAC play to earn the league's Regular Season Championship. The historic campaign saw the Cobras reel off a program-record 13-game unbeaten streak, including 10 straight victories, putting itself firmly into the top 10 of both national polls. Coker finished an undefeated month of October with seven wins, ceding just two goals while securing five shutouts.

A catalyst for the team's historic run in 2024, Antoniewicz tutored a program-best eight All-SAC performers, including SAC Defensive Player of the Year Matty Tricker and SAC Freshman of the Year Oskar Kaufmann. Tricker, Kaufmann, and Jorhan Chopin added Division II Conference Commissioners Association All-Southeast Region selection.

With Coker's 2024 All-SAC and All-Southeast Region selections, Antoniewicz has had 18 players (26 total times) earn All-SAC honors and eight players garner All-Southeast Region selection during his head coach career.

The 2021 season saw Antoniewicz guide Coker on a Cinderella run through the South Atlantic Conference Tournament, leading the program to its first-ever SAC Championship from the No. 8 seeding. The Cobras' appearance in the NCAA Tournament as the No. 10 seed in the Southeast Region marked the program's first NCAA berth since 2011. In the 2019 campaign, his first season as a collegiate head coach, he led Coker to its first national ranking since 2012.

Prior to entering the head coaching ranks, Antoniewicz spent three seasons (2016-18) as an assistant coach at Truett-McConnell University (Cleveland, Ga.). In his three seasons with the Bears, he tutored three-time NAIA All-American Joao Costa, a two-time Appalachian Athletic Conference Player of the Year. In 2017, Truett-McConnell earned its first-ever trip to the NAIA National Tournament following the program's first AAC Championship.

During his time at Truett-McConnell, Antoniewicz served as an academy coach for the Atlanta United—the 2018 MLS Cup Champions—and the head coach for Lanier Soccer Academy.

A native of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, Antoniewicz graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business with a concentration in Sports Management from Truett-McConnell in 2016.

Updated August 14, 2026