BEDFORD, N.H. — Timberlane's Emily Cannon was a little frustrated with herself for failing to produce any offense in regulation of the Class L title game against Pinkerton.
The senior's frustration heightened after she received a pass off a corner in the final seconds but her pass attempt to set up teammate Nikki Rothwell was intercepted, forcing overtime.
"I knew I needed to step it up and I needed to play so much better," she said.
Cannon did just that in overtime.
She scored on a reverse sweep to give No. 1 Timberlane a 3-2 victory over No. 3 Pinkerton at Bedford High School.
The victory marked the Owls first Class L field hockey title in program history and gave them the most wins in a season (17) in team history, coach Mim Ryan said.
Cannon celebrated with her teammates and then hugged Ryan over on the sidelines.
"I told her, 'Anytime I had told you not to take the reverse sweep, scratch it. You can take it as many times as you want,'" Ryan said, chuckling. "There's a lot of times I think she relies on it too much and it ends up being like a reverse chip, which is going to get called back each time but I said, 'The heck with that.'"
Cannon scored with 10:06 left in overtime. It was the first goal by either team since Pinkerton knotted the game at 2-2 with 16:43 left in the first half.
"It's just an awesome feeling," Cannon about scoring the game-winner on her final high school shot. "I don't know how anything could ever top this."
Cannon is a big reason the Owls remained perfect (17-0) this fall. She netted 12 goals and recorded 9 assists. She had at least one goal or one assist in 14 of 17 games and scored the game winner in two of the three playoff games.
"She always seems to come through," Pinkerton senior Brittany Gentile said about Cannon who she has played with for the Seacoast Field Hockey Club. "She's a very relaxed player and she's like the center of their team. Not that they rely on her but she's a very big part of their team and they can count on her to do a lot."
Each team is required to play just six field players plus their goalie in overtime.
Pinkerton coach Denise Rioux said before the playoffs began that she felt her team would be tough for anyone to beat in an overtime because she has five or six players who she would chose over any other players she saw during the regular season.
The Astros do have three seniors who plan to play Division 1 next year.
Pinkerton (14-3), however, squandered an early overtime chance when it failed to get off a shot during a corner.
"It just too bad we didn't convert," Rioux said. "We thought we were prepared and we were prepared. We lost on an unfortunate corner goal and that's the way it was."
Rioux and players originally questioned the legitimacy of Cannon's game-winner because they thought the pass into the circle was too high.
"A corner shot, if it's driven, it has to be backboard length height unless it's sort of coming down," Rioux said. "But it just went up high but Timberlane got a stick on it and got it down so the original height was probably not right but that's the way they called it and it's too bad."
Timberlane 3, Pinkerton 2
Goals: T — Krista Deluca, Nikki Rothwell, Emily Cannon; P — Shannon Murphy, Shealyn Testa
Assists: T — Deluca 2; P — Brittany Gentile, Tori Welch
Saves: T— Katalin Orban 6, P — Gina Rosinski 7
Pinkerton (14-3):2’Ç0’Ç0 — 2
Timberlane (17-0):2’Ç0’Ç1 — 3
