For the Toll Gate girls’ soccer program, its title drought was well worth the wait.

The Titans celebrated their first championship in school history on Sunday afternoon at Rhode Island College, defeating previously unbeaten Coventry, 3-2, behind a hat trick from junior Hannah McNulty.

“When I saw the clock winding down I was like the first championship in school history for Toll Gate soccer, it’s happening,” Toll Gate head coach Lonna Razza said after the win.

And the win was even more impressive after the Oakers took an early lead.

In the sixth minute, Coventry freshman Jordan Dwyer ran to a through ball to the left of the Toll Gate goal and directed a left-footed shot to the back of the cage to give the Oakers a 1-0 lead.

Coventry continued to carry the play for the opening stages of the first half, but an outstanding individual effort from Marisa Giard turned the tide of the game in a big way in the 21st minute.

The junior midfielder danced through a pair of Coventry defenders to the left of the goal before a third defender blatantly tripped her, triggering a foul call from the referee and earning a penalty kick.

McNulty would take that kick and calmly drill it past a diving Carly Furtado to tie the game at 1.

Oakers’ leading scorer Katie Beaudoin had a pair of chances in the final 10 minutes of the first half, but the first was blocked by Karla Wolstenholme, and the second was handled with ease by keeper Ani Armenakyan.

The Titans and Oakers would take a 1-1 tie into the break, and that stalemate would continue until the 58th minute.

Toll Gate freshman midfielder McKenna Leahy made a perfect pass to McNulty, giving her space to get a shot off. McNulty made no mistake about it, burying a shot high over Furtado’s outstretched right arm to give the Titans a 2-1 lead.

“McKenna probably puts the best balls through on this team,” McNulty said. “Her mind is always forward, she wants to score and she sent a great ball in, and I handled it.”

Less than 10 minutes later, McNulty had another penalty kick opportunity when she was fouled in the box. The state’s top scorer didn’t let another chance like that go to waste either, scoring for the third time in the 67th minute to increase Toll Gate’s lead to 3-1.

“I didn’t imagine it,” McNulty said of putting up a hat trick in the finals. “I thought that it would be a close, 1-0 game, never 3-2.”

Coventry would respond, however, in the 72nd minute when sophomore Lauren Deus put a header past Armenakyan off of a free kick by Beaudoin.

But the Oakers never threatened again, as the Titans were able to keep Coventry pinned in its own end to drain the clock.

“It’s so exciting because we’ve been working so hard this entire season until this point,” McNulty said of helping to clinch the school’s first title. “We came in shape and we conquered.”

The Titans worked their way into the finals following a tightly-contested 3-1 shootout win over cross-town rival Pilgrim on Thursday night.

And on Sunday, Toll Gate was able to call itself a girls’ soccer champion for the first time.

“I worked them very hard, and the girls probably hated me for a while, but look where we got,” Razza said as the team cheered behind her.

Everything came together for Toll Gate in the win, as it has for most of the season. While McNulty continued to score up front, the Titans’ defense was tremendous in the back with Heather Allstrom, Julia Grossi, Wolstenholme and Nicole Krause limiting one of the division’s top offenses.

It wasn’t just skill that earned the Titans the title, though. Razza noted, as she has all season, that her kids were an extremely tight-knit group.

That certainly played a factor in Toll Gate’s run to the title.

“They’re a family, these are my kids,” Razza said. “I tell them from the start to look around because these are the people that you’ll be spending the next two or three months with, and if you want to complete the mission, you guys better get along. And they do, they’re friends on and off the field. It’s an absolute pleasure to watch, because in all my years of coaching, you don’t get that a lot. It’s been a long time coming, and this is the result.”