Mount St. Mary's
- Mar 11, 2022
- 4 min read
Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers (11-12, 9-7) vs. Central Connecticut Blue Devils (6-17, 4-10)
Saturday, February 26, 2022 @ 1:00 PM Emmitsburg, MD
Knott Arena
THE SCHOOL
Mount St. Mary's University is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Established in 1808, MSMU enrolls a little over 2,000 students, and roughly 60% of those are Catholic. Additionally, Mount St. Mary's has one of the oldest and one of the largest Catholic seminaries in the United States. Currently, there are about 150 seminarians in residence.
The Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers compete in the Northeast Conference (NEC) in NCAA Division I. Last season, both the men's and women's basketball teams won the conference tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. This year, both are struggling a bit; the men are in the bottom-half of the standings while the women (who I saw today) are solidly middle-of-the-pack.
Central Connecticut State University is a public university in New Britain, Connecticut. Their Blue Devils are also members of the NEC.
THE TOWN
Taking I-270 and State Highway 15 North, it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to reach Emmitsburg. It always surprises me how sudden it feels once you leave the DC/Baltimore area. There's no marker, there's no official designation, but at some point there stops being as many cars, stops being as many exits, and the road just feels more open. I can't pinpoint exactly where that feeling starts on a map, but it always takes me off guard.
Emmitsburg is about as far north as you can be in Maryland without leaving the state. Mount St. Mary's campus is just four miles south of the Pennsylvania border and, therefore, four miles south of the Mason-Dixon line. For fun, I took a little detour into Pennsylvania on my way back, but didn't have a plan and didn't see anything interesting. Oh well.
Emmitsburg is also small. With just about 3,000 residents, Emmitsburg has MSMU's campus, a little downtown area a couple miles away, and a few scattered restaurants and dollar stores. Bordered to the west by the Blue Ridge Mountains, there are some gorgeous views around here.
Route 15 divides Mount St. Mary's campus in two; coming from the south, your left side contains most of the main campus buildings and the seminary, while your right side has the athletic facilities. As a rural campus with a classically religious ambience right next to a mountain range, the whole area has a serene atmosphere, at least to this visitor. When trying to get a good view of the seminary, I ventured over to a spot of campus I'm not sure I was allowed in, but nobody saw me.
Knott Arena is located inside the PNC Sports Complex, MSMU's main athletic space. I thought it was a pretty impressive place. It's a large structure for such a small school and it looks pretty from the outside. The court has seats along each sideline, both divided into sections of chairbacks and bleachers. The stands go fairly high up and it can probably fit a few thousand people if filled.
THE GAME
Because of changing CDC guidelines and rapidly declining COVID cases here in Maryland, this is the first game I've been to all year that did not require masks. One can only hope that this is a permanent switch.
Knott Arena's court is named after Jim Phelan, and if you know anything about Mount St. Mary's athletics, you probably know him. MSMU named Phelan the men's head basketball coach in 1954. He didn't retire until 2003. Jim Phelan's forty-nine years at one school is the most in college basketball history, and his legacy is still apparent at Mount St. Mary's.
On the flip side, the Mountaineers' current women's coach, Antoine White, is in his first year. Per his official bio, he graduated college in 2016, meaning he is only two years older than me. I am not very old, and I have no confidence that I could successfully coach a Division I basketball program, so good for him. He seems to have a bright future in front of him.
If you're at a basketball game and you get a little hungry, what food do you usually get? I'll usually go for a hot dog, maybe nachos, or very occasionally candy. You know what I don't think I've ever gotten? A pretzel. I have no issues with pretzels - I'd go as far to say that I like pretzels - but it never occurs to me. Not only have I never gotten a pretzel before, I'm not sure I've even considered it before.
But at this game, people kept walking around with these pretzel twists. I hadn't had lunch yet and I was going to get a hot dog, but seemingly everyone around me had a pretzel twist. I think I saw one person with a hot dog but probably twenty had pretzels (which makes you wonder about the hot dogs). So doggone it, I caved and got a pretzel twist. And you know what? It was delicious. Salty and soft with a pleasant aroma, it hit the spot more than an inevitably soggy, skinny, and kind of stinky hot dog would have.
There's no point to this story. I'm just reevaluating life choices through this medium.
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The Mountaineers' Jada Lee had the first really impressive sequence of the afternoon. Lee stole the ball on defense, passed the ball and ran down the court, grabbed an offensive rebound off a miss, and fired a pass to a wide open teammate for three. She amassed an STL, ORB, and AST all within about ten seconds.
Despite Lee's tough effort and Kendall Bresee's buzzer-beating three at the end of the quarter, Central Connecticut led after one, 14-13. The Mountaineers took the lead in the second quarter, thanks to three three-point shots by Bresee, Michaela Harrison, and Aryna Taylor. At half, Mount St. Mary's led 25-22.
The Mountaineers pulled away in the second half. MSMU outscored the Blue Devils 19-6 in the third quarter and a fourth quarter three-point barrage gave Mount St. Mary's a comfortable win.
Final: Mount St. Mary's 64, Central Connecticut 47
Most of the colleges around here are either in/near DC or in/near Baltimore, so it's nice to get out in the country for a bit. The city colleges are great, but there's something about going for a nice, long drive into some beautiful scenery. Emmitsburg and Mount St. Mary's provided this.
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