After nine seasons of college coaching, Kim Eldridge has found prosperity with the Peters Township High School girls' lacrosse program.

Peters Township (21-1) completed a dream season by defeating rival Mt. Lebanon in convincing fashion, 14-9, in the WPIAL championship game last Thursday at North Hills.

It was the third time this season Peters Township had defeated the Blue Devils, who had won five consecutive Western Pennsylvania titles prior to this season, including the past two in the title game against Peters Township.

Eldridge coached the Duquesne University women's team before leaving the program in 2004 for family reasons after leading the team to an Atlantic 10 Conference title. After a two-year hiatus from coaching, Eldridge was talked into taking over the Indians, who were expected to go through a rebuilding season this year.

"For me, this is extremely gratifying after taking two years off when I left Duquesne," Eldridge said. "It was fun to go back to high school. The girls are so much fun to work with.

"To just walk into a program and coach them to the WPIAL [title] after being away from it for two years. I didn't aspire to be a head coach again like this, but it's been a lot of fun."

Peters Township defeated Oakland Catholic, 21-3, in the quarterfinals and Quaker Valley, 17-10, in the semifinals. Only three opponents scored more than nine goals against the Indians in 22 games, a remarkable feat for girls' lacrosse, which tends to be a higher-scoring game than the more physical style played by their male counterparts.

"Defensively we have a strategy and we always played our style of play," Eldridge said.

Peters Township trailed 2-0 early in the contest against Mt. Lebanon, but Eldridge had confidence her team would eventually take control.

"I saw that our defense was playing well and we just weren't capitalizing on [scoring chances] so I wasn't worried about the girls," Eldridge said. "They were organized and sticking with our philosophy.

"Offensively, we've always been a [consistent] scoring team. We just had to continue playing defense the way we're capable and I knew the goals would come."

Peters Township cruised through its schedule with a barrage of one-sided wins. Its only loss was the season opener, 13-8, against unbeaten Sycamore, the recently crowned Ohio state champion.

Peters Township players warm up before each game wearing military camouflage t-shirts.

"The girls did that after I ran them through the preseason camp," Eldridge said. "They felt like they went through boot camp. They called it 'Camp Eldridge' so they had the shirts made and we wore them throughout the season."

The title-game victory capped a brilliant career by senior Paige McMenamin, recruited by three-time NCAA champion Northwestern. McMenamin came up with two goals and three assists against Mt. Lebanon after getting shutout in last year's championship game.

"Everything that I've worked for four years, we finally got it," said an emotional McMenamin shortly after the game was over.

McMenamin was inspired partially after attending the NCAA finals in Philadelphia to watch Northwestern defeat Virginia for the national title four days earlier.

"That game was similar to our game with Mt. Lebanon because Northwestern was down by two to start off just like we were," McMenamin said. "And then we rallied like they did. To win the WPIAL, this is amazing. Words can't describe how happy I am."

McMenamin is one of only two seniors on the team. The other is attack player Allyssa Izzi.

Junior attacker Jenn Doran, who sparked Peters Township with three first-half goals, will be expected to lead the team next season. Peters will rate as a preseason favorite to repeat as the WPIAL champ considering the Indians had 10 junior letter winners this spring.

"Everyone played an amazing game [against Mt. Lebanon]," Doran said. "Everybody contributed from the defense to the offense. [Alexandra Oleynik] came off the bench and scored [three] goals. It was just a total-team effort. Everyone wanted to win this and we all had the confidence coming into it ...

"When we were losing, something kicked in, where I felt like, 'All right, we're down so you need to bring it back up for your team.' I just felt we just needed that spark as a team, so I got it going [with the first three goals of the game for Peters] and we just kept going from there.

"We were the runner-up twice. But not this time, we were getting the gold and that's how we all felt about it."