Damage in downtown College Park totaled roughly $6,500 after students took to Route 1 to celebrate the men’s basketball team’s victory over Duke, suggesting extensive outreach by police and university leaders contributed to a more peaceful post-win celebration.

In past years, students have followed up basketball contests with the Blue Devils, win or lose, by inflicting significant damage to city property, said City Manager Joe Nagro. But on Saturday night, the only major casualty was a city lamp students snapped and pulled to the ground. Purchasing and installing its replacement will cost about $4,500, said Bob Ryan, College Park’s public services director. The remaining costs come from hiring public work staff to clean up Route 1 after the festivities — which included students throwing firecrackers, toilet paper rolls and eggs — died down and students retreated back onto the campus or to city bars.

No private property or storefronts were damaged, Ryan said, though the city continues to take precautions.

“All of the public safety agencies were prepared. Fortunately, they weren’t needed,” Ryan said.

In the city’s worst postgame riot, after the Terps men’s basketball team lost to Duke in the 2001 Final Four, students set dozens of fires on and off the campus, causing about $30,000 in damage to the city and about $300,000 in damage to downed Comcast cable lines.

Though Saturday’s celebrations were far tamer, Prince George’s County Police arrested two students, said spokeswoman officer Nicole Hubbard, who previously told The Diamondback there had been only one arrest.

Zachary Alex Mostowsky, whose age officers recorded incorrectly, and Andrew Francis Vanderstuyf Jr., 18, of Eldersburg both face charges of disorderly conduct — which carries a maximum sentence of 60 days in jail and a $500 fine — as well as failure to obey police.

“There were a few unfortunate incidents,” College Park Mayor Andy Fellows said. “In general, it was a real positive celebration. It really seems like the university, the Prince George’s County Police, the University Police and the city really did a good job working with students to create a celebratory atmosphere afterwards.”

City officials worked to create as safe an environment as possible by closing the bars along Route 1 for a time, blocking off an area for students to flood Route 1, and lighting a bonfire on the Memorial Chapel field, Fellows said.

“It drew people away from Route 1, so it was a safer place for people to celebrate,” Ryan said.

Over the next few months, there will be meetings to look into what can be done in the future to improve further, he added.

But once the university joins the Big Ten conference in 2014, big wins like Saturday’s aren’t likely to inspire the same excitement, said Nikki Nagler, a senior government and politics major.

“The newer tension with Big Ten is not going to be so bad because it’s so new,” she said.

However, Fellows wouldn’t categorize Saturday’s atmosphere as a “riot,” he said, as students were simply joining to celebrate defeating a rival team.

“What I saw when I got there was people jumping up and down in the streets,” he added.

Cpl. Larry Johnson, a county police spokesman, agreed it was “a peaceful celebration.”

And some students, such as senior economics major Kashni Sharma, chose to stay away from the revelry on Route 1 but said the activities she witnessed are a far cry from the destructive riots she’s heard about from past years.

“It was built up really high that it was going to be this crazy thing,” Sharma said. “It was just a way for us to enjoy the fact that we’ve won over such a big school.”