Devon (Warwick) McDonald and her teammates on the Colgate women's basketball team won the Patriot League tournament championship in her sophomore season of 2004.
"We totally crushed it that year," McDonald said.
And their reward, as the 16th seed in the NCAA Division 1 tourney? A matchup up against No. 1 seed Tennessee, and legendary coach Pat Summitt, in a regional in Tallahassee, Fla.
"We ended up having a pretty good game," McDonald said.
The Vols prevailed, 77-54, but Colgate had its moments in the finale of a 21-10 campaign, and Summitt took notice.
"They only outscored us by 1 in the second half," said McDonald. "And Pat Summitt stormed off the court. She was livid. I think she thought they didn't take us seriously enough.
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"The game was televised and we had all these friends and family watching that couldn't make it to the game watching us. It was amazing."
A 6-foot-1-inch center ("with sneakers on, 6 foot without them"), McDonald got into the Tennessee game for only a couple of memorable minutes.
"When I did get in, the girl I was going up against was, like, 6 foot 7," said McDonald. "Usually in college, when I was up against a taller girl, I was faster than she was.
"This girl could have beaten half the guys on our men's team down the floor. Almost everyone on that team went on to play in the WNBA."
Tennessee advanced to the title game before losing to Connecticut.
As a senior, McDonald earned a starting role and averaged 4.5 points and 2.4 rebounds per game; she collected 9 rebounds in a matchup at Boston College.
Her senior year at Amesbury High, she led Chris Perry's squad to the Cape Ann League championship, averaging 13.5 points, 13 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 6.8 steals, and 5.3 blocks a game. She was league's Player of the Year.
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"Blocks were my thing," said McDonald, who didn't get serious about basketball until high school. "I got more of a rush out of blocking shots than scoring baskets. I don't know what it was. I just liked stuffing people. I feel like it would always get the crowed riled up when I blocked a shot and we fed off that."
A sociology and anthropology major at Colgate, the soon-to-be 31-year-old McDonald is a partner at OpenView Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in software companies. She and her husband, Nick McDonald, live in the North End with their two young children, Grace and Callan.
Allen Lessels can be reached at lessfam321@gmail.com.