WEST BLOOMFIELD >> Last November, the Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Eaglets locked themselves in a weight room, and began prepping for the 2024 season waiting for moments like this. A moment where you can be resilient, determined, and succeed in.

“That’s just been Orchard Lake Football for centuries for years is to play physically. And we needed that to help us for times like this, in the playoffs, and all that good stuff. So I’m just proud of this group,” third-year head coach Jermaine Gonzales said.

“You don’t understand, we started this thing back in November after last season, not making the playoffs our weight program started in November. And these seniors were locked in all spring, summer, winter, to get to this point.”

That point was to force overtime with under a minute to play, make a key interception in overtime, and help seal a win.

Thanks to those series of events, the Eaglets will return to Ford Field with an 28-27 overtime win over Birmingham Groves in the MHSAA Division 2 state semifinals on Saturday.

OLSM will play Byron Center on Friday at 7 p.m. at Ford Field for the state championship.

“That was our whole mindset all year, but this is a resilient group, like, all year, we lost closed games to really tough teams,” Gonzales continued. “But we know as a team, we got better from it each week. And I just think we just showed that today. Hats off to Groves, they’re a helluva team, well-coached, physical team. This was a great game, but the job’s not finished.”

Both Groves and OLSM played back and forth the entire game answering scoring drives with scoring drives. But a defensive stop came up late in the fourth quarter.

Groves’ defense forced the Eaglets to punt from its own end zone, which gave the offense the ball in plus territory with 1:09 to play. The Falcons offense moved the ball as close to field goal range. On third down from just outside the red zone. Coach Brendan Flaherty thought he had enough time to spike the ball, after a run play was called on third down.

“We got, you know, some mayday field goal and we have that in our playbook, and we just didn’t have enough time to get it out there,” he said. “So we thought we could gain a couple more yards there and maybe spike the ball and yeah, get it there. That’s what we were hoping to do.”

Groves was able to recover immediately in overtime after losing the coin toss. Noah Sanders scored his third touchdown of the day that gave the Falcons a 27-21 lead. Groves then decided to go for a 2-point conversion, to have OLSM chase points.

“We were trying to get them ahead so they’d have to chase some points,” Flaherty said. “We made a call there because we knew they’d sell out for a block. We thought we had a good call drawn up because the play was open there for a second there.”

As Ryan Counts rolled to his left, he had Wyatt Shortridge open, but the Eaglets made a play and picked off a contested pass.

The next play, St Mary’s scored with a 10-yard touchdown run by senior Bryson Williams, his second of the game. Then it was up to a freshman kicker and holder combo to send OLSM to Ford Field.

“I trusted my line, I trusted Luke (Jackson), and I really trust DJ (Taylor). He’s been holding for me all freshman year and he’s amazing. He’s probably the best holder I’ve ever had, and I knew he was just gonna go through,” freshman Beckett Kiefer said. “DJ and I haven’t missed an extra point all year. Now we’re going to Ford Field.”

The Eaglets started the scoring on its opening drive of the game when Camari Patterson scored a 1-yard touchdown run. Senior Darrin Jones added another on a 43-yard touchdown as well on OLSM’s second drive of the game.

On the other sideline Noah Sanders answered the opening drive with a 50-yard touchdown of his own. The Toledo commit had a second touchdown in the second half as well on a 1-yard carry before he earned his third score in overtime.

Sanders had 27 carries for 180 yards.

The game was tied going into the half thanks to Counts’ 7-yard pass to Shortridge. OLSM retook the lead on a 21-yard score late in the third quarter on fourth and five by Williams.

The Groves defense was buoyed in big moments by Chris Little who had two interceptions in the second half.

This now marks the fourth time that Groves has gotten to the final four under Flaherty since 2016, but the Falcons still haven’t found a way to take the next step.

“I’m just, you know, just disappointed, disappointed that we didn’t come out with a victory and take the next step. This was a great senior group of guys and, you know, the young guys take lessons from them, and that’s what they do after today. That’s all you can do,” Flaherty said.