By Craig D’Amico

Back in 1988-89, Dr. Sharon Beverly took over as the head coach for the Fairleigh Dickinson women’s basketball program. Little did she know what would follow soon thereafter.
Following a first year in Hackensack that featured a one-point upset win over Marist in the NEC Tournament, Beverly brought in her first recruiting class that offseason.
Her “Fab Five” class of Rita Bernert, Meaghan Culkin, Felicia Griffin, Trina Ricketts and Donna Schules would go on to be the core of one of the first dynasties in the Northeast Conference.
In 1989-90, the young Knights would go 9-7 in conference play during the regular season, before stunning the league by upsetting Marist and Mount St. Mary’s to win the program’s first ever NEC Tournament title.
“That 1990 year, we came from a three-seed, and we were playing Marist, the two seed,” recalled Dr. Beverly. “We were supposed to be there, get our butts kicked and go back home. I remember we were down at half, and I will never forget. We came out of halftime and Felicia (Griffin) stole the ball three times right out of the half, and we never looked back.”
Fresh off capturing the crown, and with the core of their championship team returning as sophomores in 1990-91, there was much optimism in Hackensack about a repeat. However, it was not to be.
“They were all young and thinking, ‘We’re all back, this will be a piece of cake.’ It was not a piece of cake,” Dr. Beverly remembered.
The Knights went 11-16 (8-8) and finished in seventh place, one game out of a playoff spot.
“We realized that we had the same team, but everyone else was getting better, so we just couldn’t relax and it’s just not going to automatically happen,” said Griffin. “We had to go back and put in that extra hard work and rely on each other as teammates.”
So the Knights went into the offseason prior to the 1991-92 campaign motivated to put their underperforming title defense year behind them and reclaim their spot at the top of the NEC.
“Oh yeah, we were motivated. We were motivated from the last game of that 1991 season until we got back on the court in October,” said Culkin. “I felt like we came back in 1991-92 ready to play from day one.”
The Knights burst out to a 6-0 start in non-conference play, highlighted by a landmark victory against Seton Hall.
“A key moment in our season was our win in non-conference over Seton Hall,” said Dr. Beverly. “We went to the free throw line and had to sink two free throws to win that game. We had never beaten Seton Hall. We hadn’t even come close. But there was never a doubt we were going to make those free throws, and when we made them, I just stood there and looked around and said to myself. ‘I’m going to take this all in for a minute.’ It was an amazing game for us, and a key moment for our team and our season. I was so proud of them.”
“We had confidence going into conference play,” said Culkin, “and that Seton Hall game definitely gave us that confidence.”
In conference play, the Knights started 7-0, including wins against rivals Marist, Mount St. Mary’s and Monmouth. However, FDU would stumble in midseason, dropping two out of three, with a five-point loss at Robert Morris followed by a heartbreaking three-point setback at Mount.
Going into the final game of the regular season, the league’s regular season title was still up for grabs. Mount stood at 14-1, and FDU was a game back at 13-2. But a slim 60-59 setback to Saint Francis U, denied the Knights a shot at a regular season crown, and sealed their fate as the tournament’s No. 2 seed. For the Knights, the road to the 1992 title would have to go through Emmitsburg, MD.
The Knights would get past LIU in the semifinals, 69-57, to set up a championship rematch with the Mount. However, their run to the final did not come without adversity.
“In the last game before Mount, Trina (Ricketts), who was one of the leaders in the conference in blocked shots, rebounds, you name it, she breaks her ankle. So we had to go into a championship game with no center. We typically started three guards, but in that championship game we started four guards,” said Beverly.
In 1992, Mount St. Mary’s was in just its third year in the NEC. The Mount had won three straight regular season titles but had fallen short of a championship in each of their prior two tournament appearances. Bill Sheehan’s roster was loaded with talent, including future NEC Hall of Fame inductees Vanessa Blair and Suzie Rowlyk. Entering the tournament’s culminating clash, the Mount were sitting at 23-4 (15-1), with the Knights having handed the Mount their lone NEC defeat.
With both programs looking to establish themselves during the league’s infancy, and now meeting in the championship game for the second time in three years, the Mount/FDU rivalry quickly became the biggest rivalry in the NEC.
“The Mount/FDU rivalry had such competitive games,” mentioned Blair. “When we were about to play FDU, it was one of those games we couldn’t sleep the night before because we were looking so forward to playing them. It was one of those games we always had circled on our calendar.”
“Mount had such a confidence about them, and they had such an outstanding team,” said Beverly. “What helped us actually was our win in that first championship (in 1990). So in the next championship (in 1992), we had that confidence, and our kids knew they could beat them.”
Without Rickets in the lineup, the Knights started sophomore Christine Bachmann in the post, matched up against Blair, the two-time NEC Player of the Year.
“I think of Christine who had to play center and she looked at me like, ‘I’m going to play Vanessa Blair, at 5’11?’” said Beverly. “But in my mind, I’m saying, ‘I have to figure out a strategy for how to beat them because we came too far. We can’t have this team not win this championship. They are too talented not to do this.’”
The Knights’ strategy in the 1992 final was to use their four-guard lineup to their advantage, to run the Mount out of the gym.
And it worked.
“They weren’t prepared for it. We were never going to stop running,” said Beverly. “We pressed them baseline to baseline, crashed the boards, and we just played with a lot of heart.”
“We were so well conditioned,” recalled Culkin. “We ran everyone into the ground. We played full court defense, non-stop. We were just so focused and determined to win. We were winning in our head before we even stepped on the court. We had the confidence. I remember Coach’s line…’If they can’t score 60, they can’t win.’”
In the 1992 final, Mount wouldn’t reach 60 points, and they wouldn’t win. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, FDU had reclaimed its throne, upsetting the mighty Mount, 78-55. Juniors Griffin and Bernert were named to the All-Tournament team, and freshman Barbara DeShields was honored as the 1992 NEC Tournament MVP.
“Barbara DeShields wasn’t having it. She was not going to be denied in that championship game,” said Blair.
The 1992 FDU squad finished with a program record 23 wins and its second tournament title in three seasons. Following the championship game, while the Knights celebration was underway on their team bus as they awaited their return trip to the Garden State, an unexpected visitor interrupted the party.
“The game is over and we’re partying on the bus,” said Beverly. “All of a sudden we look up and Vanessa Blair is standing there. I look up and she says, ‘Coach Beverly, I just wanted to congratulate you all. You have such a phenomenal team.’”
“I have great respect for Coach Beverly,” said Blair. “At the end of the day, the best team won.”
The core group of Knights did return in 1992-93 for their senior season to try and defend their title. FDU went 14-4 to earn a share of their program’s first ever regular season championship, and clinched the tournament’s #1 seed. However, the Knights were upset on their home court by Marist in the semis, prematurely ending their season.
“We thought we should have won that one too in 1993. That was pretty rough. As a senior, you want to go out on a high note, and we didn’t. That would’ve been the cherry on top,” said Griffin.
In 2008, 16 years after cutting down the nets, the entire 1992 NEC championship team was honored with induction into the Fairleigh Dickinson Hall of Fame.
“There were five of us that came in together as freshman. Us five, all the way until graduation, we gelled together well because we were Coach Beverly’s first recruits,” said Griffin. “We learned how to play together as a team.”
On February 5, 2022, the Knights celebrated the 30th anniversary of their 1992 title team at the Rothman Center prior to their game against CCSU.
Presently under the direction of head coach Angelika Szumilo, the Knights are enjoying their winningest three year stretch in conference play since those teams of the early ‘90’s. The 2022 Knights can only hope that their current run includes the taste of a championship and the memories of a lifetime that their predecessors collected from 30 years prior.
“They were a special group,” said Dr. Beverly. “As a coach, you go out and recruit, and you have a vision for what it is going to take to win. When you have an opportunity to coach a group like I had the opportunity to coach, that doesn’t come often.”