In the closing minutes of Tuesday night’s basketball game, Mount St. Mary’s University students sat on the edges of their seats.
It was a drizzly Tuesday night, the eve of Easter Break. Digital cameras flashed in a darkened Knott Auditorium on the university’s campus just south of Emmitsburg. An ESPN broadcast of a game between the Mountaineers and Coppin State University loomed on the stage below.
The university hosted the viewing for its students and members of the community, with cans of soda and candy bars available. The audience of more than 100 was overwhelmingly made up of students. The nation's second-oldest Catholic university, the Mount is celebrating its Bicentennial in 2008. It has 1,695 undergraduates – 60 percent female, 40 percent male.
‘‘God’s been on our side for 200 years,” was on the back of one T-shirt Tuesday.
The Mountaineers had a 7-point lead over Coppin State – comfortable, but not unassailable. Then the camera panned to the Coppin bench, where one of the players standing in the way of the Mount and history hung his head under a towel. Mount fans took it as a sign, and rose to their feet. The noise level soared when the camera, for the first time during the entire broadcast, panned to a group of traveling Mount fans in the bleachers high up in the University of Dayton Arena, just under the rafters.
A rousing chant:‘‘I believe! I believe that! I believe that we will win!” made its way around the auditorium. Seconds later, the team sealed its 69-60 win, and entry into the 2008 NCAA Tournament for the first time in nine years. It will be the third time the team has competed in the 65-team tournament in its Division I history. They’ve gone out in the first round both in 1995 and 1999.
Mount junior Liz Trentacoste was among the crowd watching the game on campus Tuesday night. Her roommate, junior Erin Fox, made the trip to Ohio to cheer on the team. ‘‘Stuff like this just brings us all together,” said Trentacoste, 21, of Garden City, N.Y. ‘‘That’s what makes The Mount so special, is that sense of community that we have.”
According to Linda Sherman, the university’s director of communications, three busloads of Mount fans departed Emmitsburg for Ohio at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday, and returned Wednesday morning.
‘‘The kids are just absolutely thrilled,” said Sherman, who travelled with the students.
Trentacoste is one of the ‘‘Mount Maniacs,” a group of diehard basketball fans. Junior Karen Bowersox is another. ‘‘Now I’ve got to find a ride to North Carolina,” said Bowersox, 20, of Westminster. ‘‘We’re already booking our flights.”
Bowersox, Trentacoste and fellow ‘‘maniacs,” Eddie McCullough, 21, of Caytonsville, Beth Kitchen, 20, of Newark, Del., and Isabel Sacasa, 21, of Potomac, all juniors, watched the Tuesday game intently from a row high up in the auditorium.
Whenever a Mountaineer shot free throws, hands shot into the air, fingers waving. If the ball went in, a chorus of, ‘‘Whoosh! Mount U!” swept through the auditorium.
‘‘Hopefully our spirit here in the auditorium can transfer to Ohio and help the team win, and they can hear us screaming, even though we’re states away,” said freshman Amanda Althoff, 18, of Vienna, Va.
Mount St. Mary’s University takes on top-ranked University of North Carolina, in Raleigh, N.C., in Round 1 action at 7:10 p.m., Friday. It will be broadcast on CBS.
