ROYAL OAK >> The Birmingham Seaholm Maples defeated the Royal Oak Ravens 2-1 Wednesday in the opening round of the state tournament.

“It was a scrappy game, but that’s what you expect from these kind of things,” Maples head coach Greg Perkins said.

Seaholm got its goals just on either side of halftime. After a dominant first half, the Maples finally cracked the scoresheet with just under two minutes to play when Drew Stice banged in a rebound on the back side to make it a 1-0 lead.

The Maples doubled their lead about five minutes after halftime when Marco Rodrigues fired a long free kick toward the top of the penalty area that went straight to Angelo Nuculaj, who cleanly collected the ball, turned and ripped it into the lower-left corner to make it 2-0.

“We scored at the right times, I think. Scoring just before halftime was good, and then we started the second half pretty poorly, and to get that goal helped, because we weren’t playing well,” Perkins said.

But whereas Seaholm had been the better team in the first half, Royal Oak was the better team after halftime. The Ravens had started the second half strong, despite giving up the second goal to Seaholm, and their offense didn’t need much longer to click in its own right. Royal Oak got on the board with 29:03 remaining in the second half when Baylor Browning slotted a ball through in transition that found Justin Xhelilaj, who quickly fired the ball into the net, cutting Seaholm’s lead in half.

But if anything, that goal seemed to settle Seaholm down a little, and the Maples tightened up defensively the rest of the game.

“Maybe it just woke up a little bit because sometimes you need that reminder that it (a comeback) can happen,” Perkins said.

But Royal Oak was still the better team for that stretch. With the combination of Tivon Mikael, A.J. Austin, Baylor Browning and Justin Xhelilaj leading the attack, the Ravens were much more dangerous after hafltime and came within a whisker of tying the game in the final minute when a header by the Ravens skimmed the crossbar.

“We had some chances, too. I thought we moved the ball really well in the first half and created some chances,” Ravens head coach Joe Shamanski said. “Overall, though, our guys, their second half was better than their first half. They played with a lot of energy and a lot of excitement going into that second half,” he added.

This was the second time the teams had played in three days. Monday’s game had also ended with Seaholm winning 2-1.

With today’s win, Seaholm (12-5-2) moves into next Monday’s district semifinals, likely against top-seeded Troy.

Royal Oak finishes the season 13-7 overall. The Ravens will graduate 10 players from this year’s team.

“I thought that they did a great job all season. The seniors really did a good job just leading our team, and 13 wins means that you’re doing a lot of things right,” Shamanski said. “There’s a lot of underclassmen that are coming back. We’ve got a lot of juniors and some sophomores that will be coming back again. So we’ll be ready to compete again next year,” he added.