It started with 59 schools. And then there was one.

At 11 a.m. Thursday, it was announced on the Victoria’s Secret PINK Web site that the University of Illinois won the fifth annual Victoria’s Secret PINK Collegiate Showdown competition.

The month-long competition, which featured the U of I against Virginia Tech in the final round, was a worthwhile fight, said Isabela Fit, freshman in LAS.

“I found out in class that we were winning, and I didn’t even vote today,” Fit said. “There were a lot of people online during that time, and even my teachers were talking about it.”

Multiple notifications were sent from the Victoria’s Secret PINK Collegiate Showdown Facebook group throughout the day encouraging last-minute votes, even promoting an early power hour.

“Before I fell asleep, there were people messaging me saying that they (Virginia Tech) were going to do a power hour at 5 a.m.,” said Laura Sheehan, sophomore in LAS. “It was pretty crazy to see how devoted people were to get our school to win. When I woke up this morning, I was expecting to see a closer range between the scores. Instead, we kept voting all night and I was ecstatic to see the votes were about 28,000 to 22,000.”

Fit said she was very excited when she found out the University had actually won the competition.

“I was really surprised that people still kept voting and put a lot of time and effort after each round,” she said. “I know how those [Facebook] notifications were really annoying to some people, but I’m glad we finally pulled through.”

Sheehan credits the work of all of the creators of the Facebook groups and event pages for helping the University succeed.

“We worked really hard to successfully spread the word and get everyone to vote,” she said. “Now we are just inviting all the U of I students to the winning event hosted by Victoria’s Secret. I can’t wait to come back for my junior year and experience this amazing back-to-school event.”

Taylor Reed, freshman in DGS, said she was thrilled to be a part of such a unique event.

“When I found out we were only 6,000 votes ahead with two hours left, I knew we had won,” Reed said. “I brought my laptop to class to watch the countdown and was jumping out of my seat.”

After the University was announced as the winner, the Victoria’s Secret PINK brand created a Facebook page, where students who join the group are notified of updates about the date of the party as well as the secret performing artist.

“As a freshman, it was so exciting to see U of I win something so big and bring us all together,” Reed said. “To participate in something that was originally unheard of and have everyone talking about it was really cool.”

Members of the Facebook group are already trying to guess who will be performing at the back-to-school bash.

“If I had to pick one person to come perform at U of I (for the bash), I’d say it would have to be Kid Cudi,” Fit said. “That would be a great way to start the year.”