By George O’Gorman, Special to The Post

Don’t think there wasn’t pressure on the Pennington School girls last Saturday night when they took to the turf at Mercer County Community College to play for the Mercer County Tournament title.

Sure, there wasn’t the same kind of pressure coach Karen DeRossett’s Robbinsville girls were up against as they tried to derail nationally-ranked Pennington and win the MCT crown in their first trip to the title round.

“There was pressure on us,” said Red Raiders senior defender Hannah Knudsen. “We know the tradition our program has here and we didn’t want to be the seniors who stopped it.”

Switching to a 3-4-3 alignment that put heavy pressure on Robbinsville goalie MaryJane Seiler immediately, Pennington got a goal from its senior combination of Kaitlyn Kerr and Renee Washington ten minutes into the match, and went on to a 4-0 win for its sixth MCT championship in seven trips to the final and its fifth in a row.

Senior Alexa DeMaio, who has played great defense for four years for the Raiders, showed she can do it at the offensive end with a goal and two assists off corner kicks as Pennington, which has been number one in The Trentonian Area Top 10 for five years, got its record to 14-1-2 and its unbeaten run to 15.

“I wanted to push up tonight because it’s a big field,” said DeMaio, who insists it never gets ‘old hat’ playing for an MCT title.

“We take each game as it comes. This was the game on our schedule we wanted to win,” said DeMaio. “Nothing ever gets old, it’s always exciting.”

Pennington took the excitement out of this one quickly as Kerr sent a free kick to the back post where Washington rocketed a header by Seiler. Thursday in the 2-1 overtime win over Princeton it was Kerr scoring on Washington’s free kick to get Pennington past it’s toughest CVC challenge this season.

“We should have used this 3-4-3 against Princeton and it might have been different,” Raiders coach Bill Hawkey said. “We felt we would use it tonight and it worked well.”

Once Robbinsville got over soccer’s equivalent of ‘stage fright’ by playing on the big stage against the state’s best team, it kept the match close for the rest of the half. Pennington did have two goals disallowed and two shots hit the bar later in the half.

The second half got out of hand quickly when DeMaio scored from a free kick, then later sent a corner into the box where Kelly Boyce headed it in. A DeMaio corner to the goalmouth with 17 minutes left was flicked on by Washington to Morgan Davis for the fourth goal.

“I know Pennington is very good,” said DeRossett, “but once our girls saw it was 1-0 and they could play with this team they played better. I’m so proud of these girls for getting here for the first time. We’ll learn from it.”

Robbinsville, which defends its Group I state title starting on Thursday, can still move closer to clinching the CVC Patriot title if it beats Notre Dame at home tomorrow in a makeup game. That one is also huge for ND which can tie for the CVC Colonial crown with a win.

For Pennington, the next challenge is to go for a seventh straight Prep A state title starting Wednesday against Lawrenceville.

“These are exciting times for us,” said Pennington senior defender Hannah Knudsen, the team’s unsung hero who had a great game in the back. “Every year is a new year and these are always exciting games.”

Especially when the win brings another trophy.