After 86 years and countless heartbreak along the way, the Boston Red Sox have finally won the World Series.

Last Wednesday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0, to complete a dominating 4-0 series sweep of the redbirds.

It was Boston’s first world championship since 1918 – a date that had been sewed into the hearts and minds of Red Sox fans since they started following the team.

Here at Quinnipiac, hundreds of jubilant Red Sox fans spilled out onto dorm road to celebrate. Some carried Red Sox banners, most had some sort of Red Sox gear on, but everyone was united in their joy that after all these years of coming up short, our Red Sox were the champions of the baseball world.

During the immediate celebration, many students were simply in shock and could not believe that the Red Sox had just won the World Series.

“I can’t believe they won. You know, I think going into Game 4, everybody knew they were going to win. Now that it’s happened, I’m just speechless,” Kyle Sullivan, sophomore, said.

Sox fans here at Quinnipiac stampeded in celebration to the edge of the quad where a large circle of students spent the next twenty minutes or so chanting, slapping five and just enjoying the rare feeling of the ultimate victory.

“I’m in complete shock,” Steve Brooks, sophomore, said.

Brooks’ thoughts seemed to permeate the atmosphere, as there were several cries of “I can’t believe we just won the World Series.”

But who could blame them? The Red Sox, after all, were down 3 games to none to the hated New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series only 10 days earlier.

Worse, they were down to their last three outs with Yankees closer Mariano Rivera on the mound.

However, the Sox rallied to win that game on a David Ortiz homer in extra innings and then won the next three games to become the first baseball team to ever rally to win a series after being down 3-0.

That also resulted in a Dorm Road celebration by Red Sox fans here at Quinnipiac and led to a Red Sox camp and a Yankees camp being established on the stairs behind Perlroth Hall.

The two sides chanted at each other for a good hour, leading to much more of a raucous atmosphere.

That back-and-forth part of it was missing last Wednesday as Sox fans celebrated the World Series championship.

Since the students did not have any real opposition to taunt, the gathering largely dispersed after about half an hour.

Asked if the win over St. Louis and ensuing celebration here at Quinnipiac seemed at all anti-climactic after the dramatic series against the Yankees, Sullivan said he didn’t think so.

“Two groups of people were going after each other after the Yankees series,” Sullivan said.

“It was something that everyone was so much involved in. This was just Red Sox fans – we did not know what to expect or what to do.”

What they did do was largely peaceful revelry, with the only hint of trouble coming when a few students started pulling at one of the lamp posts on the Quad.

Security quickly broke it up before any damage could be done to the post.

And what did a Yankees fan think of the Red Sox winning their first World Series in 86 years, at their expense no less?

“I’m happy for [Red Sox fans],” Paul Persiani, sophomore, said.

“I’m upset it had to happen at the expense of the Yankees. The thing that didn’t really hit me until [the Red Sox won] was if the Yankees hadn’t lost to the Red Sox in seven games, we would have been in the World Series and we would almost definitely have won.”

Alas, for once, the Red Sox knocked off the Yankees and went on to be World Series Champions.

It was a great feeling for long-suffering Red Sox Nation and its members that are currently here at Quinnipiac.