For a first-year head coach at the varsity level, Erin McConnel found the tenseness of the moment almost too much to bear.

The Shady Side Academy team McConnel coaches went to overtime against The Ellis School with a WPIAL field hockey championship on the line Monday night at Fox Chapel.

"I mean, your mind was just going so fast," said McConnel, who had been the program's junior varsity coach the previous three years. "You're trying to figure out whom to put in, tell them what to do. You're intense. It's such an intense situation, you just hope you can give the girls what they need to succeed, and have them play their game."

Whatever instructions McConnel relayed during that whirlwind of frenzied activity must have worked OK, because the Indians' Gina Cunningham scored only 1:18 into overtime to give Shady Side Academy another WPIAL title.

"It was in slow motion," McConnel said of her perspective of the title-winning goal. "I saw it hit the post and I was like, 'Just hit it in!' With this game, there were so many times it looked like a clear goal for either team and they muffed it or it got blocked, so it wasn't a sure goal until she put it in."

Karen Dawson scored in the first half for the Indians, and Erin Gorse made several stellar saves in goal for the Indians, particularly in the second half when Ellis was controlling the play and had several corners and shots on goal.

Gorse, only a sophomore, is in her first season on the varsity team. Although she had been strong for the Indians in net all season, coming up big on the biggest of stages in the area for the sport is something she hadn't shown yet. But if Gorse felt any pressure, she didn't show it.

"She's proven to me," McConnel said. "We played in many tough games, and she's proven to me each game that she can stay in there. Even when she's scored on, she can stay tough, and today she just proved it once again. Sealed the deal again for me that's she's a great goalie."

"She played amazing," Dawson said. "She's a really good goalie. She's been playing like that the whole season. She's amazing."

The Indians will play in the PIAA tournament, beginning Tuesday. WPIAL teams traditionally haven't fared well in the event, but Shady Side wants to represent the western side of the state well.

"We just have to have the same gameplan," McConnel said. "We stuck with it all year because it works. We'll continue to do the same things, stick with the gameplan because it's working."

"Our team has a goal to win states," a euphoric Dawson said during the celebration on the field after the game. "And then, go global."

In the Class AAA championship match that followed the Class AA final Monday, Fox Chapel was able to shut out a potent Peters Township team through all of regulation and 14 minutes of overtime. But Peters scored with exactly one minute to play in overtime to win its first WPIAL championship.

"It's painful," Foxes coach Jennifer McCrady said. "It was exciting. It's everything you could ask for in a final. It was awesome. The fact it was scored with a minute to go and we were a minute from a stroke-off, it makes it twist the knife a little bit more.

"We couldn't finish. We just couldn't finish."

Goalkeeper Madison Wagner was stellar against the Indians. It was her final game in a Foxes' uniform, as it was for five other Fox Chapel seniors: Forwards Cali Skalski and Caroline Irvin, back Natalie Austin and halfback/backs Laura Faust and Katelyn Bagley.

"This is my first year as coach, and my six seniors, these guys have stepped up unbelievably," McCrady said. "It's never easy with a new coach.

"They've been leaders, they've led by example on and off the field. Anything I've needed, they've done and then some. And they've just been great role models for this team that's coming up."

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