By Brittany Burke
Walking across the way to get to Kaiser for the home opener of the CCSU women’s basketball season, I saw something that I had never seen before with women’s basketball; a line of fans at the ticket office.
The lobby was a sea of blue and red out to support the Blue Devils and UHart Hawks. Inside the craziness continued with Victor E and the UHart Hawk making their way amongst the cheering fans packed in across both sides of Detrick.
Timeouts and intermissions were filled by the CCSU cheerleaders and dance teams, as well as the UHart dance team and at points in the game it was tough to tell who the home team was.
Even though a huge crowd turned out to the game, the majority of the fans were there to support the Hawks, and a gym that is supposed to be covered in blue was taken over by the color red.
As play progressed CCSU chants were drowned out by shouts of “Let’s Go UHart,” it’s sad when the usual “CCS-U” cheer was overshadowed by the noise made from UHart fans on the Blue Devils’ home court but, all the commotion is the best thing that could happen for Blue Devils athletics.
Despite being a part of two separate conferences, it is clear that there is an in-state rivalry between the CCSU Blue Devils and the UHart Hawks communities. I first noticed the rivalry while in Kentucky for a student media conference, and Saturday’s game only intensified the competition.
As a media member on press row I am banned from cheering, but I have to admit it was amazing to see a come from behind win for the lady Blue Devils.
“We go way back from when I used to play them so it’s a great rivalry, it’s a fun rivalry and it’s always nice to get the first win and it’s even nicer against Hartford,” said Head Coach of the women’s basketball team, Beryl Piper.
The women’s team hasn’t won against the Hawks since the 1997-98 season and haven’t won a home opener in a decade. The last time the Blue Devils took on the Hawks they lost by fourteen, and even though UHart still has one up in the series 17-7, defeating them made the first win even more monumental.
“It’s good momentum obviously going into the season it always goes UConn, UHart then the rest of us so so it’s a big win I think for us,” said Leanne Crockett.
The bad news kept coming for the UHart Hawks when the CCSU men’s basketball team staged a comeback of its own to take a victory in the Connecticut 6 tournament at Mohegan. The men’s rivalry dates back more than fifty years, with CCSU on top of a 40 game series.
A competitive non-NEC rivalry full of loathe and disdain between the two student bodies is a great way to get all of Connecticut excited about athletics outside of the UConn Huskies spectrum. Most of all an intense rivalry is a way to hype the CCSU students and bring involvement numbers up.
As long as CCSU continues to say F-UHart the rivalry can go on, whether it’s basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball or even this newspaper.