BY DAN STICKRADT
WEB AND CONTENT EDITOR
Twitter: @MiSoccerNetwork
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. – When Josh Hickey gazes down the hallways at Rochester Adams, across the classroom or even up in the stands in the stadium or gymnasium, he sees a ton of soccer talent.
That’s no secret, because since launching its first boys soccer program back in 1981 and first girls soccer program in 1983, the school has enjoyed a long pipeline of team success and talented players are always coming up the ranks. That should be the case again in the near future.
It’s only really been in the last 10-12 years that not all of that talent has donned the Adams jersey or did so for four years while attending the school.
“There’s 14 girls right now – that I know of who aren’t playing high school soccer for us,” noted hickey, who took over the boys soccer program at Adams in 2009 and the girls soccer program in 2018 after years of being an assistant coach. “There’s just a lot of girls right now and a few boys that opt to play club soccer. But that’s okay. I want to coach kids that want to be here, that want to play for Adams and for their school. If they come out, great. We can tell them what we have to offer.”
Like most schools in the power pockets and hotbeds of soccer across the state, today’s era of ECNL and U.S. Girls Academy on the girls soccer side and MLS Next Academy, MLS Academy (out-of-state residency) and some fall showcase club teams on the boys soccer side draw away some of – but not all of – the top players in the state each school year.
Still, Rochester Adams keeps pumping out quality teams in boys soccer and girls soccer year-in and year-out and keeps producing players that garner a wide variety of accolades and still even sees plenty of student-athletes gain scholarship positions on college rosters.
This spring in the girls soccer season, nothing has changed at Adams, which has proven time and time again to be nothing short of a model of consistency.
Historically, Adams is believed to have posted only one season where the Highlanders finished below the five-hundred mark and that came back in 1995 with a really young team. That didn’t last long, as by 1997 Adams won both a Oakland Activities Association Division I league title and a Class A district championship that year and rolled all the way to the regional finals before falling to Troy.
In 1998, Adams was the Division 1 state runner-up and the following season in 1999 the Highlanders claimed their second state title in school history. The other state title came in 1992, a year where Adams was actually second in its league (the old Metro Suburban Activities Association) to nemesis Troy Athens.
Over 42 seasons, Adams has captured nine league championships, 17 district championships and 11 regional championships.
The school has appeared in the Final Four (state semifinals) 11 times, including 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010 and 2012, not to mention losing in the regional finals a few more times and just short of the Final Four. The Highlanders were also state runners-up in both 1990 and 1998.
That’s a lot of history and a lot to play for when wearing a Rochester Adams jersey.
“It’s never easy. I always try to tell the kids that each year,” said Hickey, one of several successful coaches to roam the sidelines at Adams over the last 40-plus years. “Just winning our league or district – it’s brutal. There’s so many good teams around here. Everything has to go right for your team to win championships or make a long run in the (state) tournament).”
This spring in the girls soccer season, Rochester Adams is enjoying yet another quality campaign, as the Highlanders entered the Division 1 state tournament last week ranked sixth in the state in the MIHSSCA polls. Adams currently stands at 11-2-2 overall against quality competition (there were three games that were cancelled and never made up), and only one school on the Highlanders’ schedule finished at five-hundred (Woodhaven at 9-9-0) while the other 14 games came against schools that finished well above the five-hundred mark.
Adams finished in a three-way tie for second place with Troy Athens and Rochester Stoney Creek in a loaded OAA Red Division where all seven schools were above five-hundred and all seven schools spent time as being listed as honorable mention in the Division 1 state rankings or inside the top 15 rankings.
Adams has been ranked in the top 15 all season long and entered a loaded district as the top seed. All seven of the schools in the district finished above the five-hundred mark (Utica, Utica Eisenhower, Utica Ford, Romeo, Rochester, Rochester Stoney Creek and Rochester Adams) and each of those schools enjoying a lot of success in recent years or overall in their respective program’s history.
“Just winning our league or district is so tough,” reminded Hickey. “We’ve been very fortunate to win a lot (of championships) over the years.”
Adams picked up a pre-district bye last week and ousted Macomb Area Conference-White Division runner-up Utica 6-1 this week in the district semifinals to earn their spot in the district championship round Saturday morning. The Highlanders will face Rochester, honorable mention in the polls, at 11 a.m. for the right to win a district trophy and advance to the regional semifinals. Rochester spent the entire 2022 and 2023 seasons ranked in the top five in those years and only lost twice in those seasons – again signaling how difficult is for teams in this region to be able to add championships up on their gymnasium walls.
Adams has not reached the district finals since 2019 and that was a stretch when the Highlanders won back-to-back district titles in 2018 and 2019. Adams lost in the 2018 regional finals to Grand Blanc and in the 2019 regional finals to Troy, two more powerhouse programs with similar storied histories.
Adams has a ton of talent on its 2024 roster, some that could play in college in the future and even without the services of that multitude of club players that opted to compete for the likes of Nationals Girls Academy, Michigan Jaguars Girls Academy, Liverpool FC ECNL or the Michigan Hawks ECNL club sides.
“We have a bunch of girls that play well together, and again a group of girls that want to be here,” added Hickey.
There’s so much to play for while suiting up for Rochester Adams.
(Have a story suggestion for the Premier Media Group and the Michigan Soccer Network regarding club soccer, high school varsity, amateur soccer, collegiate soccer or professional soccer of teams or players with Michigan ties, contact Communications Specialist/Web and Content Editor/Director of News Dan Stickradt via email at stickradt@michigansoccernetwork.com, or call 248-884-1051. Dan Stickradt is a 31-year veteran of the Michigan Media circles and recently joined the staff full time in March of 2024. Want to schedule a broadcast game or live show, contact PMG/MSN Director of Broadcasting Jonathan Turner for availability and pricing at jonathan@michigansoccernetwork.com.)
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