Brother Rice tops OLSM, Eaglets’ George Porritt closes career
SOUTHFIELD » Orchard Lake St. Mary’s coach George Porritt may end up missing a lot of things about coaching football in his retirement, and a lot of people, but Nolan Ray probably isn’t one of them.
Not considering the way the Birmingham Brother Rice junior running back has shredded Porritt’s Eaglets defense in his last three meetings.
That continued in Friday’s Division 3 district championship game at Lawrence Tech, as Ray finished with 205 rushing yards and three scores on 24 carries, leading Rice to a 32-19 win that marks the end of a coaching era.
“No,” admitted Porritt, who coached his last game in the loss, despite holding Ray to just 20 second-half yards, and Rice to no points in the second half, with just 37 total offensive yards after the half. “We did a nice job with adjustments at the half. We just had to tackle better, I think. You know, we weren’t tackling great, and he’s a heck of a player.”
Brother Rice (8-3) moves on to regionals, where it will host Mason (9-2), a 27-21 winner over Haslett in a district final.
St. Mary’s finishes 6-5 in Porritt’s final season, leaving him 14th on the all-time wins list in MHSAA history (278), and with 14 finals appearances and eight titles.
While the Eaglets couldn’t send Porritt out with one more title, they did fight it out to the bitter end, turning the ball over on downs four times in the fourth quarter, inside Rice territory.
“They played with great heart, you know. I was really pleased with the defense and they just didn’t come up with the big plays you know, but the kids gave us everything we could, and that’s pretty good,” Porritt said. “I thought you know if we could come up with a big play you know, when we had a couple of defensive stops and we just couldn’t do it —their defense hung in there, man. … I thought we could get one there sometime, you know, at one point, and it just didn’t happen.”
In many ways, the playoff rematch played out much like the regular-season meeting in Week 6, where the Warriors scored 43 first-half points in a 43-25 win,
their fifth win in the previous six meetings, and eighth in the last 11.
“It was like the first time we played them. Our defense was on the field a lot. We had three consecutive drives where our offense scored on the first play. So I mean, our coach really stressed this whole week that they outscored us 22-0 in the second half the first game. So I mean, don’t let off the gas pedal, foot on the gas pedal the whole way,” Rice senior defensive end Ryan Ervin said. “And we just had a lot of guys make big plays tonight. And it was a team win.”
This time, it was a 3213 lead at the break, with Ray providing the first score — a 3-yard touchdown run — just 21 seconds into the game, then scoring touchdowns of 74 and 58 yards on a pair of one-play drives to make it a 19-0 lead with just under a minute remaining in the first quarter.
Coming into the game, Ray had 390 all-purpose yards and five scores on 20 touches in his previous two games against the Eaglets.
“He’s a very good player. Powerful kid, fast, incredible patience for a running back and really good vision, too,” Rice coach Adam Korzeniewski said. “People understand now he’s a very, very, very good player.”
Aidan Boyle scored the
first of his three touchdowns on OLSM’s first drive of the second to cut it to 19-6, but the Warriors answered with a 27-yard scoring run by Cole Lacanaria — whose return of the opening kickoff down to the OSLM 13 set up the first score by Ray.
“You really need those big plays, the home run plays early in the game. I mean, that’s just I mean, it could change the whole game right from the first play,” Ervin said. “So we were ready. We’re fired up from the first, like six plays of the game or six seconds of the game. So I mean, it was great.”
Even when the Eaglets tried to squib kickoffs later on, the Warriors were getting solid returns.
“Our special teams were phenomenal. … With one exception. I don’t know how this is possible, but our PATs were terrible,” said Korzeniewski, whose team missed three of five extra points. “It could have (bitten us), but it made the game a lot more stressful than it should have.”
After a 34-yard completion from Brayden Ledin to DC Temple down to the Rice 1, Boyle scored again on a 1-yard run to cut the Rice lead to 26-13, but Brayden Dowd answered with a 12-yard score on a jet sweep to send the game to the half with Rice up, 32-13.
St. Mary’s took the opening kickoff of the second half down the field, scoring 13 plays in on a 7-yard run by Boyle
to make it 32-19 after the PAT was blocked.
The Warriors got burned early with substitution penalties, trying to match personnel with the Eaglets.
“Our scheme wasto get guys on in certain situations. And then when Coach Porritt caught on to that, we basically said, you know, we got to keep the same guys on the field,” Ervin said. “They’re going hurry-up. So I mean, after that we just had to settle in, make plays with the guys that are on the field.”
The Warriors stopped matching up after the first few drives.
“The issue was —and they have never really done this in the past — at the high school level, you don’t have the substitution rule where you gotta get the defense time to get set. And they had not done this before, but I think they knew they were catching us,” Korzeniewski said. “And so it was very rapid and I think we learned after one drive sure that listen, this is gotta change. … Once we realized that they knew what they could do to us, we stopped it immediately — after they scored a touchdown on that drive. And then we stopped them immediately.”
The Warriors — who had interceptions by Sam Klein, Brennan Parent and Josh Filar — turned it over twice themselves (both fumbles) within the final 14 minutes of play, contributing to a situation where the defense had to
stay out on the field an inordinate amount of time.
“The issue was we weren’t doing things on offense to keep the defense off the field, you know, a couple turnovers, three and outs. And you know, so they had, they had a hell of an offer. The defense was really outstanding, for sure,” Korzeniewski said. “Time became an issue and ultimately they ran out of it and then it became an issue because they were forced now they couldn’t run the ball they had to throw had to throw had to throw had to throw, and at that point, then you can start to really hone in on what you’re doing defensively and changing things.”
The Eaglets drove to the Rice 32, but turned it over on downs with 10:50 left when a dump-off pass came up 5 yards short of the sticks on fourthand-9.
An incompletion on a fourth-and-9 from the Rice 42 with 4:52 left turned it over on downs again, and after the Eaglets got it back almost immediately on a fumble recovery, they went four-and-out, turning it over again with 4:20 left after an incompletion on fourth-and-6 from the Rice 34. The fourth and final turnover on downs came with 2:21 left, when Ervin came up with a sack on fourth-and-10 from the Rice 45.
One first-down run by Charlie D’Angelo allowed the Warriors to run out the clock.