(left) Brother Rice's Mike Fennessy and Rochester Adams Dylan Knott battle for the ball during their MHSAA State Semifinal game at Rochester Adams High School.

By KEITH DUNLAP

Of The Oakland Press

ROCHESTER HILLS — The shot rifled from roughly 25 yards out by Birmingham Brother Rice senior Adam Gorski might have ended up in the back of the net anyway.

But given the tough breaks the Warriors had earlier, and how good Rochester Adams goalie Kevin Soisson is, Brother Rice junior Cameron Ireland decided it was best not to take any chances.

Stationed right near Soisson, Ireland deflected Gorski’s shot into the goal with 12:48 left in the first overtime to give Brother Rice a 1-0 win over Adams in a Division 1 boys soccer state semifinal played at Adams on Wednesday.

The goal sent Brother Rice’s bench and fans into a wild celebration and the Warriors into the state championship game for the third time this decade, where Brother Rice will meet Holt at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Troy Athens.

Brother Rice tied Warren De La Salle in 2000 and lost to De La Salle in 2005 in its other championship game appearances.

“I just deflected it to make sure it went in,” Ireland said. “There was a keeper there. It could’ve gone in, but who knows?”

It was wise for Ireland to put his foot on the ball, because Brother Rice at that point had to feel a little snakebitten.

In the first five minutes of the game, Brother Rice (15-3-6) had three glorious chances inside the Adams’ box, but none resulted in a goal. One went hard off of the crossbar. Another was stopped brilliantly by Soisson, while the ensuing rebound was elevated above the crossbar while Soisson was helplessly on the ground.

With 24:30 left in the game, a deflection in the Adams box by Brother Rice forward Peter Hensoldt went inches wide of the far post.

“Sometimes, when you don’t cash in those chances, they come back to haunt you,” Brother Rice head coach Barry Brodsky said. “As a coach, you’re trying to force that out of your mind and not think about it. You just keep working and good things are going to happen.”

A good thing did happen for Brother Rice early in overtime, when it earned a corner kick. The Warriors didn’t score off of the corner kick, but the ball ended up coming out to Gorski, who was positioned roughly 25 yards from the goal.

With all his momentum going forward, Gorski ripped a hard shot that got through the maze of bodies in the Adams box and to Ireland, who did the rest.

“I really can’t believe this,” Gorski said. “With about 1:30 left in the game, I fired a shot that hit one of my players. My teammates picked me up and just said to keep shooting. The ball came down, I put one on the frame and Cameron just tipped it in.”

Brother Rice carried the play in the first half, outshooting Adams, 6-2, and collecting two corner kicks. The Highlanders started coming on a bit late in the second half and had a lot of the play on the Brother Rice side of the field, but couldn’t manage to score on a Brother Rice defense that still hasn’t given up a goal in its state tournament run.

Adams did have a golden opportunity of its own with 28:35 left in the game when a shot by junior Alex Czirmer caromed off of the post.

“I thought we had some chances,” Adams head coach Josh Hickey said. “I think they had maybe better-looking chances, but I thought our chances were more a matter of they toe-poked it away or something like that.”

After starting the season off slowly, Adams (17-4-3) entered Wednesday on a 17-game unbeaten streak and had hoped to advance to its first state final since 2001.

“We knew it was going to be back-and-forth,” Hickey said. “They’re a good team. I thought it was a 50-50 game. I knew one break was going to end it. It was just unfortunate it happened with 2:12 into overtime. I don’t know what happened down there. It was a cluster in there and they had a shot on net that squirted through.”



E-mail Keith Dunlap at keith.dunlap@oakpress.com