Devlin applied a championship press

There were 11 minutes and 11 seconds left, Worcester State women’s basketball coach Donna (Hebert) Devlin remembers, when she called a decisive timeout with her team trailing by 11 points in the 1980 AIAW (Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) Division 3 national championship game.

“I said to the kids, ‘I know you’re tired, but if we want to win this thing, we’ve got to do it, we’ve got to put on a full-court press,’” Devlin recalled Friday morning in a phone interview from her home in Port Lucie, Florida, “and we did, and, geez, we just turned the whole game around.”

The Lancers took control and rallied for a 76-73 win over Wisconsin-La Crosse to capture the title in Spokane, Washington.

“What is totally amazing to me,” Devlin said, “is whenever 11:11 shows up on the clock, it could be morning, it could be at night, I always seem to look at the clock when it’s 11:11. And the players say the same thing.”

Devlin and her pioneers of local women’s college basketball will mark the 40th anniversary of their championship in March, and Devlin, her assistant coach Denise (Desorcy) Collins, and all the players will reunite to celebrate it in July, likely at Collins’ house in Millbury.

“Oh my God, 40 years,” Devlin said. “It just boggles my mind it was 40 years ago.”

Devlin, a Worcester native and St. Stephen’s High graduate, relocated to Jupiter, Florida, in 1988 with her husband, Bob Devlin, another local sports great who passed away in 2009. They moved to Port St. Lucie in 2004.

Devlin’s ties to her home state remain strong, and she gets back every year to visit her sister in Wilbraham as well as her two sisters who live in New Hampshire. She’s still in close contact with her former players and gets together with them when she’s in the area. Later this year, Cathy (Westall) Kuzmeskus, one of the stars of the 1980 team, as well as Collins are heading down to visit her.

“It’s been great,” Devlin said.

Devlin’s father introduced her to softball, and she grew up playing in local leagues — St. Stephen’s did not offer sports for girls — and she went on to pitch for the Raybestos Brakettes and play basketball, as well as volleyball and badminton, at Southern Connecticut State. A 1968 graduate of SCSU, she was inducted to the school’s hall of fame in 1991.

Devlin earned her master’s degree from Southern Connecticut in 1969, and soon after, Worcester State coordinator of women’s athletics Peg Nugent hired Devlin to join the physical education department and coach the women’s basketball and softball teams.

“I was young,” Devlin said, “and I didn’t have a lot of experience.”

Devlin actually thought her 1981 team would be the one to do big things, but the 1980 squad, led by a talented group of juniors, standouts Joan O’Donnell and JoAnn Medeiros, and freshman point guard Sharon Pike, peaked a year ahead of time.

“We beat some really good teams during the year,” Devlin said. “Then the regionals came, and we just kept going on. It was just a phenomenal team. It was just a dream come true.”

The 1980 team, which also included Margie (Collins) Coggins, Kathy Feen, Maureen Feyre, Lora (Bremner) Fitzpatrick, Jackie Shaker, Barbara Williams and Kathy Williams, was inducted to the Worcester State Hall of Fame in 1999 and was part of the inaugural MASCAC Hall of Fame class in 2018.

The 1980 Worcester State team went 24-2 and beat Division 1 Northeastern during the season.

“We just had these local kids who were nice players, and they all just jelled,” said Devlin, who was inducted to the Worcester State Hall of Fame in 1993. “We had some good shooters, and my husband helped me with this defense he used to use — he was a great coach — a combination man-to-man and zone defense, and teams couldn’t adjust to it, and I think that was really a key for our program.”

Bob Devlin was an iconic Worcester athlete, coach, most notably at St. John’s High, and administrator. Donna and Bob met at Worcester State, where he was the director of athletics. They were married for 37 years.

Devlin’s 1981 Worcester State team advanced to the national semifinals.

Devlin was a five-time club champion at Worcester Country Club, and she continues to enjoy golf, playing bridge, entertaining friends and traveling with her partner, Dick Pruitt. They are going on a cruise next week.

“Retirement is a great life,” Devlin said. “It should be a great life.”

—Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @JenTandG.

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