HUNTSVILLE — Decatur High coach Mike Pline couldn’t risk it happening again. Not two years in a row after his team had made it to the Class 5A state girls soccer semifinals again.

Pline recalled when forward Sally Adams left Decatur’s 2007 semifinal loss to Briarwood Christian early with heat exhaustion. And Friday against Athens High, as the temperature rose and the humidity increased, Pline’s nerves told him that those same problems had re-appeared.

In the first few minutes, Adams went to the bench, swallowed down a few big gulps of water and late in the game scored the third and back-breaking goal in Decatur’s 3-1 victory over Athens High. The victory sent the Lady Red Raiders into the state finals against Briarwood Christian, an 8-1 winner over John Carroll in the other semifinal. The two teams will meet Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Brendan O’Halloran Field at John Hunt Park.

“It is just a relief because I was really nervous about this year because of what happened last year,” Adams said. “I have been getting hydrated all week. I came out with a lot of confidence, and our whole team has been hydrating. So it’s just a relief to score three goals on them.”

Adams said that to guard against last year’s problems, she drank 32 ounces of water every morning and 32 ounces of water in the evening. This clearly helped her longevity, especially in the 75th minute when Adams took a pass from Taylor Rutherford, curled to her left and lifted a shot to the upper left portion of the Athens goal.

On the score sheet, the play won’t be designated as the “game-winning goal,” but it certainly put the game away for Decatur (20-6-5) against the Lady Golden Eagles (19-6).

Now facing No. 1-ranked Briarwood, Decatur has the rematch it craved before the playoffs started. Last year, the Lady Lions ousted the Lady Red Raiders 5-1 in the state semifinals.

Decatur hopes that it won’t be so easy for Briarwood this time around.

“Bring it. We are ready,” forward Meg Adams said. “We are a much better team than last year, and I feel prepared for this game.”

The Lady Red Raiders showed early that they had moved past the “happy to be there” stage from the previous year’s Final Four appearance — in fact, it only took 58 seconds.

Meg Adams made a run down the left side of the field toward the Athens goal. She then slid the ball to her right to a wide open Megan Schmidt, who booted the ball into the right side of the net to make it 1-0.

Then, in the 16th minute about 15 yards in front of the goal, Meg Adams spun around lifted a shot into the top right corner of the net.

At that point Decatur appeared in control. The Lady Raiders out-shot Athens 15-3 in the first half and dictated most of the play. But the second half proved a different story. In the 50th minute, Decatur took down Athens forward Brenna Horrocks in front of the Lady Red Raiders’ net, which forced a penalty kick. Horrocks buried the ball in the bottom right corner to make it a 2-1 game.

Decatur then intensified its barrage of shots on the Athens goal, which created several scoring chances. Schmidt appeared to have scored in the 52nd minute, but an offsides call nullified the goal. Sally Adams then booted a shot off the goalpost in the 54th minute.

At the 58th minute all that came to a halt when the referee gave Decatur a red card. The Lady Red Raiders had to play the rest of the game with one fewer player on the field than usual, and Athens almost capitalized.

In the 72nd minute, Athens’ Brooke Phillips found herself wide open in the front of an empty Decatur net. She then slid her foot over the ball, which almost made it past the goal line before Kim Collis got her foot on it and kicked it out. Moments later, Sally Adams scored.

“We were thinking, ‘We can do it; we are so close,’ and then we had just a near miss down here that would have tied it up,” Athens coach J.B. Hutchison said. “Our momentum was building. Everyone believed that we thought we would get there. It just bounced a little bit short.”

Soccer results

Here are the results of local boys and girls high school soccer teams competing in the state tournament at the Huntsville Soccer Complex on Friday.

Class 5A girls

Decatur 3, Athens 1

Finals: Decatur vs. Briarwood Christian, Saturday, 9 a.m.

Class 5A boys

John Carroll 6, Brewer 1

Class 1A-4A boys

Randolph 2, East Limestone 1