PENNINGTON — Normally when a team wins a state championship there is a jubilant celebration and the immense satisfaction of ending the season by capturing the grand prize. Although the Pennington girls soccer juggernaut did manage to capture a remarkable 18th state title on Tuesday, it was far from thrilled about ending up as the Prep Class A co-champion after a 1-all draw against Pingry. A big part of the disappointment, of course, is Pennington’s bar has been raised so high sharing anything with anybody is just not in its DNA. The other reason the Red Hawks (11-2-1) weren’t exactly in a joyful mood was because they’re a better team than Pingry (13-6-1) and should have won this game on its home pitch. “Our girls did what they set out to do (win a state title), but being the co-champion just doesn’t feel quite right,” acknowledged Pennington coach Dr. Bill Hawkey. “The last time we were in this position was in the early 2000s when we shared the title with Lawrenceville.” The frustrating day for Pennington started right away when Maya Raghunandanan got free on a breakaway in the first two minutes and got off two shots from point-blank range. Both times she was denied a goal by Pingry keeper Ellie Solomon. This scene played out over and over as Raghunandanan was able to get off a host of shots that barely missed despite repeatedly drawing the attention of Pingry’s entire back line. For the game, Pennington out shot Pingry, 21-10. As the game progressed, it appeared Pennington might not even get a a share of the title when Pingry got on the board on a left-footed blast into the far corner by Maya Nuwayhid with 26:20 remaining in the second half. It was the 32nd goal of the season for Nuwayhid, who is a Columbia University recruit and was unable to play the rest of the game after her goal because of an ankle injury. With the season on the line, the Pingry goal resulted in Pennington really turning up the offensive pressure even more in a game it easily could have easily won by three goals. Not helping matters was the Red Hawks kept firing away when crossing the ball to wide open teammates in the box might have been the better option. Truth be told, Pennington also could have easily been awarded multiple penalty kicks after Pingry appeared to commit fouls in the box. It was a close call, but Pennington finally got on the board with 3:34 remaining when Nora Close took a perfect pass from Raghunandanan and cooly blasted a shot between the legs of Solomon to tie things up. One minute later, it nearly got the winner when a shot by Sara Chrnelich caromed off the cross bar. Pennington had the better of the play in the two overtimes as well, but by this point its best chances to score were gone. A lot of people were expecting things to be settled in penalty kicks, but the Prep state tournament has long preferred to crown co champions rather than go to the dreaded PKs. While it was not the perfect ending, it still was another in a long line of outstanding seasons for Pennington. The Red Hawks went undefeated in their last 11 games and only gave up two goals during that stretch. “I’m trying to tell the girls they have a lot be proud of, but they are hard to convince,” said Hawkey. “We went undefeated last year and graduated 10 seniors. There was a lot of pressure on this group to succeed and they did. They gave it a great effort. This was one of my favorite teams that we’ve had.” Pingry (13-6-1) 0 1 0 0 – 1 Pennington (11-2-1) 0 1 0 0 – 1 Goals: Pin-Nuwayhid. Penn-Close.  Assists; Penn-M. R aghunandanan. Shots: Pin-10. Penn-21. Saves: Pin-Solomon 10. Penn-Brochon 1, Dwyer 2.