McDaniel
McDaniel Green Terror vs. Ursinus Bears
McDaniel Green Terror (5-2, 1-2) vs. Ursinus Bears (5-1, 2-1)
Saturday, December 2, 2023
Westminster, Maryland
Gill Center
McDaniel College is a private college in Westminster, Maryland. Founded in 1867, McDaniel was the first co-educational college south of the Mason-Dixon line. Until 2002, it was known as Western Maryland College, which is confusing, because it isn’t in western Maryland. Apparently, it was named after the Western Maryland Railway because the school’s board chair was the railroad president, which I think is a dumb way to name a school.
In the 2000s, they renamed WMC after William Roberts McDaniel, who spent most of his life as an educator or administrator at the college. Most importantly, according to Wikipedia, McDaniel invented the sport of club swinging. From what I can tell, club swinging (which was featured in two Olympics) is like if someone looked at gymnastics and asked, “you know what this needs? Juggling.” It seems to be like an elaborate juggling routine, but you have to hold on to the pins. Anyway, McDaniel (the school, not the dead guy) has an enrollment of 3,200 students, but no intercollegiate club swinging team.
The McDaniel Green Terror have one of the best nicknames in sports. Like most most mascot stories, no one knows what’s actually true, but the school claims a coach or newspaper reporter referred to their football players as “terrors” sometime in the 1910s. They wore green uniforms, and a nickname was born.
You may wonder — what does a Green Terror look like? McDaniel/Western Maryland has had several mascot iterations over the years. Today, their mascot looks like this:
He’s not a bad mascot, but I wouldn’t call him a “terror.” He looks too friendly; he could be on Barney. In the 1970s, they had this:
I don’t know what that’s supposed to be either. He has whiskers like a cat but the face is all smushed. In the 2000s (up until 2017), they had this guy (not safe for work):
Holy moly. That was the official, university sanctioned mascot of McDaniel College in 2017. If you’re looking for Terror, ding ding ding you have your winner.
The Green Terror compete in the Centennial Conference in NCAA Division III. Their opponent, Ursinus College, is a private college in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. The Ursinus Bears (boring) also compete in the Centennial Conference.
THE TOWN
Westminster is northwest of Baltimore, just about twenty minutes from the Pennsylvania border. The town has about 20,000 people and a cozy little downtown. I took the backroads to get there and came to a realization: Maryland is a very pretty state. If hills and trees are your thing, the Old Line State has you covered. It’s a shame that so much of my experience of Maryland has been in boring and generic suburbs.
McDaniel’s campus sits just outside Westminster’s downtown. It certainly feels separate from the rest of town, but the campus is not all that big, so it doesn’t really stick out. It’s located right at the top of a hill (locals seem to refer to campus as “the hill”) that overlooks part of town.
The Gill Center is small, even for Division III. The building’s exterior is a sleek, seemingly-new, glass and concrete structure that leads into a large lobby. But the actual basketball court is rather small and dark. There are only eight rows of bleachers alongside one sideline to go along with a few baseline seats that weren’t being used. That said, it was a good and engaged crowd (including a lot of opponent fans) — there were very few open spots.
THE GAME
Here’s a secret about living in Washington, DC: there aren’t any of the good fast food restaurants here. McDonald’s is everywhere, and you’ll find a lot of Subways and Dunkin’ Donuts. But among the (what I think) higher quality fast food chains — your Whataburger, Zaxby’s, Freddy’s, Culver’s, etc. — there’s a dead zone between Northern Virginia and Baltimore where none of that exists. I don’t know why, I think all of those would be popular, but we don’t even have Arby’s here.
But Westminster has a Raising Cane’s, and that was my lunch on this day. I normally like to find a little local place by the college when I travel for games, but since we have so few familiar fast food options, I frequently feel obligated to visit an old favorite whenever I see one. Cane’s is still pretty good; exactly as I remember.
Here’s a secret about being in Westminster: the GPS signal stinks. Upon leaving the restaurant, I had no service, and aimlessly drove around Westminster trying to find a college. I made a turn toward downtown and was just about to pull over and ask someone/restart my phone, when I looked up and realized I was two blocks from my destination. This turned out better than it could have.
I don’t know why Lil Overcash left Bend, Oregon to go to school at McDaniel, but I’m sure Green Terror fans are glad she did. Overcash (#12) played all forty minutes and her team needed her for every one.
It didn’t seem like it would be that way at first. Overcash and the team scored with ease and played dominant D early. McDaniel’s #22, Payton Tague, hit a late pull-up three to give the Green Terror a 20-11 lead after the first quarter, and McDaniel led by 15, 35-20, at halftime.
McDaniel got sloppy in the third, though, including a three-turnovers-in-ninety-seconds stretch, and Ursinus took advantage. The Bears clearly tried to push the pace, and they scored more points in the third quarter (23) than they did in the whole first half (20). Ursinus’ Madison Smith (#1) made a buzzer-beating jumper, and suddenly, Ursinus entered the fourth quarter down just 2 points, 45-43.
With 6:09 remaining in the game, Ursinus’ #11, Alison Lisanti, made a shot to cut the deficit to 1 (49-48), but the Bears proceeded to go on a 3+ minute scoring drought. McDaniel’s Elaina Beckett (#31) converted an and-one to give the Green Terror a nine-point lead with 2:30 left. Ursinus had one last run in them; Madison Smith made a couple shots, the Bears continued their strong defense, and with 27 seconds on the clock, it was once again a one-possession game, 61-58. But they couldn’t get over the hump, and confusingly didn’t try to foul with time still on the clock.
Lil Overcash finished the day with 17 points and 3 assists, while Elaina Beckett had 12 points and 7 rebounds. Meanwhile, Ursinus’ Chinwe Urondi had 16 points and 6 rebounds.
Final: McDaniel 62, Ursinus 58
This is actually the second time I’ve seen McDaniel’s women’s basketball team. I saw them play at Goucher College nearly two years ago, in the first east coast game of this project. That was a fun experience but a terrible basketball game, so things have improved over the last twenty-five months.