Before the sun rises in the Shenandoah Valley on Thursday morning, the JMU women’s soccer team will board a bus and depart Harrisonburg. The Dukes will begin an ascension that will take them north on I-81 and east on I-66, each for about an hour, before reaching their destination — Dulles Airport.
It is the first destination of many for the Dukes this weekend, who will embark on a four-day trip to the mountain west at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday.
The trip will span over three time zones, cross over three state borders, and total almost 4,000 miles.
Madison will play two soccer games and attend a University of Colorado football game before ending its trip at around 3 a.m. Monday morning.
All in all, JMU will spend about 19 hours travelling over the four-day span.
“I think we have a mentally tough team,” junior forward Corky Julien said. “So I don’t think having to travel so much is gonna bother us at all.
“It’s stressful, but at the same time it’s an experience that we will only get once in a lifetime, so we are willing to take that trade off.”
From Dulles, Madison will board a five and a half hour plane ride destined for Boulder, Colo., the home of the University of Colorado.
After landing in Boulder, the Dukes will take a two-hour bus ride to Laramie, Wyo., where they will take on the Cowgirls Friday afternoon.
They will return to Boulder in time to see UC’s football team’s Saturday game with Eastern Washington before battling The Buffaloes Sunday.
Finally, the Dukes will catch a plane back to Dulles shortly after its match with UC, returning to Harrisonburg in time for Monday’s classes.
Flying thousands of miles to play soccer is nothing new to sophomore midfielder Teresa Rynier, who traveled to California and England with her Pennsylvania club team during high school.
For sophomore defenseman Corinna Strickland, however, this will be the furthest soccer trip she has ever taken.
“I’ve not really [ever wanted to go to Wyoming], but it’s exciting still,” she said.
So what is the reasoning behind coach Dave Lombardo taking his team out West to play soccer in a state where people are outnumbered by cattle?
It’s pretty simple, actually.
“Wyoming came to us last year for our tournament (the JMU/Comfort Inn Invitational), so we had committed to going back out there,” Lombardo said.
Originally, JMU was supposed to be in a similar tournament this year in Laramie, playing host Wyoming and one other invitee. But a coaching change at UW changed things for the Dukes.
UW’s new coach “had other plans,” said Lombardo.
He did not want to schedule a tournament, so Lombardo had to look elsewhere for an opponent. Traveling 2,000 miles one-way to play one game would not be too logical, to say the least.
Luckily for the Dukes, Lombardo is a personal friend of the head coach at UC, Bill Hempen. He contacted him, looking for an opportunity to play the Buffaloes while out in Wyoming.
“We ended up getting a second game,” Lombardo said. “Logistically, it worked out.”
JMU will be taking on a Colorado team that made the NCAA tournament last year and “kinda hovered around the top 25,” Lombardo said.
“We’re excited about it. It’s just nice to get a change of pace.”
