from jACKSONVILLE.COM

TAMPA - Jackie Hellett didn't know she'd won the match until her Ponte Vedra teammates started rushing toward her.

The sophomore sealed the Class 4A state title for the Sharks with a penalty kick to give them a 1-0 (4-3 PK) victory over Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons on Saturday at the University of Tampa's Pepin Stadium.

Ponte Vedra played the Chiefs (29-1-2) to a scoreless tie through two overtimes and then to a 3-3 tie in the initial round of penalty kicks, forcing a sudden death shootout.

Sharks keeper Emily Vergo saved Cardinal Gibbons' first sudden death attempt to give Hellett, the Sharks' sixth shooter, a chance to win the match, and she buried her shot in the back of the net.

But Hellett didn't realize at first that the match was over.

"I didn't know that was going to be the game-winner," she said. "And then Courtney [Jacquay] came running, and I was like 'Did we win? Did we win?'"

They did. In the program's first season.

But it wasn't the first ring for Hellett, Vergo or Jacquay. They and three of their Sharks teammates played for Nease's Class 4A title-winning team last season.

"We wanted another ring, but we wanted it in blue," Hellett said. "Playing at Nease last year and winning a state championship as a freshman was really cool, but this year, I really felt like I was a part of it."

The Sharks (25-3-4) kept hoping to punch in a goal against Cardinal Gibbons, the top-ranked team in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America national poll. But neither team found the mark.

That meant penalty kicks.

"I hate games ending in penalties, just because you feel so bad for the losing team, but you can't play all night I guess," Ponte Vedra coach Dave Silverberg said. "Our PK practices the last week have been very poor, so I wasn't really confident."

Hellett was nervous, too. Ponte Vedra's leading scorer had been missing her kicks in practice and didn't want to be in the first group of five players to take kicks.

So Silverberg made her No. 6 - and she iced the coach's fifth state title. He won four at Nease before taking the job at Ponte Vedra when the school opened this year.

"I knew coming in that we had a quality team," he said of the Sharks. "I didn't dream of a state championship, but they proved me wrong."