The saying goes "on any given night." On any given night, the underdog is going to out-perform the reigning champ or the ranked opponent. This was one of those nights, one of the biggest victories in Towson women's basketball history.
 
No. 25 Maryland came to the Towson Center on December 10, 2009 most likely expecting a win but left with a 67-55 loss in front the biggest crowd to watch a women's hoops game in that arena.
 
The Tiger Throwback series is presented by Hollenshades.

It is not unheard of, but certainly uncommon, that a team such as Maryland would travel to a mid-major for a game. Typically, the roles are reversed, Towson would travel to the then-Comcast Center to face the ranked opponent coming off a pair of Elite Eight appearances. As luck would have it though, the Terps came into town.
 
For senior Shanae Baker-Brice, it was enough just to have them on the schedule.
 
"That is the only game that stands out from when I was at Towson," Baker-Brice said. "The only game. We had to promote our own games and I remember this one guy saying: 'Oh yeah, I'll come, to watch Maryland beat you!' and that was a fire under my eye. It wasn't just him, there were a lot of people saying they would come to the game, just to see Maryland beat us."
 
"I told my coach to get them on the schedule because I had been dying to play Maryland, they were one of the schools that didn't recruit me. It was a little personal to me going into the game," Baker-Brice said.
 
Towson's head coach Joe Mathews had scheduled with Maryland for home-and-home matchups, the Tigers went to College Park the following two seasons and hosted the Terrapins once more in 2012 in the Towson Center.
 
Heading into the season, let alone the game, Mathews wanted to schedule strong opponents. He knew this squad could get wins and wanted to build the RPI. Towson faced West Virginia, Winthrop, North Carolina A&T, UMBC, Eastern Kentucky, East Carolina, Loyola and Bucknell before hosting Maryland.
 
A 4-4 record entering the game against No. 25 Maryland who was 8-1, the single loss to Mississippi State.
 
"We had a very experienced team a lot of upperclassmen, a lot of players who played a lot of minutes in big games, in high-level competition," Mathews said. "The nerves wasn't really [a factor], I know the team was excited for the opportunity."
 
The team was excited and so was the surrounding area and campus. The largest crowd for a women's basketball game in the Towson Center, 2,243 people, showed up for this matchup. As memory serves, though, that crowd was not all Black and Gold.
 
"To see the arena, packed with all red, it was a statement going into that game," Baker-Brice said. "If you see the Towson Center, just the right side was black or gold, the rest was all red and it was packed. They had the whole left side and a bunch on the right wearing red."
 
The fans showed up alright, they came to watch their top-25 team play just down the road. A team that won the 2006 National Championship.
 
At 7 p.m. the ball is tipped, Maryland's Kim Rodgers scores the first bucket, a three, eight seconds into the game.
 
Baker-Brice responds with a jumper 14 seconds later, the back-and-forth scoring ensued. Towson had five leads in the first half while the visitors had four. With 35 seconds left in the half, the Terps scored and cut the lead to four. Guard Jaleesa Dryver scored a major three-point bucket as time ran out to extend the lead to seven.
 
"We always fed off of her energy," said former Tiger, Haliena Washington, in reference to Baker-Brice. "If she was hot and it was going well, we felt at ease and could just follow her lead."
 
Entering the locker room. Towson led 34-27. Three players for the home team had eight points, Baker-Brice along with Dryver and Katrina Wheeler. First half stats showed the Tigers shooting 56 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from three, while the Terps shot 34.5 percent from the field.
 
"When a team creates an upset, there's always one person," Mathews said. "Usually you get the ones you expect, you're going to get your best players to play, if they don't play you won't win. But who is that X-factor? Who is that other person that stepped up and did something a little out of the norm? Jaleesa was that player that night."
 
Going back out on the court with a seven-point lead against the strongest opponent this team had seen this season, Towson started to pull away further.
 
Buckets were traded on each end of the floor, but with 11 minutes left in the action, the Tigers were up by 10. Maryland would never see the lead the rest of the game.
 
"If there was ever a time to beat Maryland, it couldn't have been more perfect," said Morgan Valley, former Tiger assistant coach. "The team that we had was super talented, Katrina, Shanae, Haliena, Omara, we were really good. It was one game we would play really well and so everything just clicked in that game. Being from the DMV and playing Maryland, I think any team that plays Maryland in that area it's like the National Championship game."
 
Washington, formerly Snowden, started at forward that night and mentioned for the seniors it meant just that much more for this game to happen and even sweeter to take the dub.
 
"I think that's probably the highlight of my entire career at Towson," Washington said. "It was the cherry on top of the cake because it was my last season, my senior year."
 
Baker-Brice went on to lead the team with 25 points, she also had seven assists and three steals. Dryver dropped in 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds and Katrina Wheeler also scored 10 points, had five rebounds and a steal.
 
"We played Towson basketball from Point A to Point B," Baker-Brice said.
 
As the final buzzer sounded the team came off the bench onto the court and celebrated and the fans did as well, storming the court and making it even difficult for the teams to shake hands at the end.
 
"Even with some seconds left, the football players were trying to get on the court before the buzzer even went off," Baker-Brice said. "We were celebrating on the sidelines, on the chairs, chanting to the fans, the buzzer went off and we stormed the court, you would have thought we won a championship."
 
Towson earned the first win over a ranked opponent in program history and took the most recent victory over Maryland that night.