Of all of the rivalries in the state of Virginia, few contain the history and number of postseason matchups shared by JMU and Old Dominion.
While the two schools had met before, the rivalry gained its notoriety while JMU and ODU were conference foes in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) from 1991-2013. During that time, the Dukes and Monarchs faced off in multiple postseasons, faced hostile crowds at both schools and picked up conference championships at the expense of each other.
But most of that ended when Old Dominion left the CAA in 2013 for Conference USA. Shortly after, the two teams had occasionally played in multiple sports, but the matchup lacked frequency and postseason matchups.
That changed last year, when both schools joined the Sun Belt Conference. Since then, every JMU sport has played against the Monarchs except for cross country and softball, both of which Old Dominion doesn’t sponsor. This includes six Sun Belt tournament matchups across women’s soccer, swim & dive, women’s basketball, men’s golf, women’s tennis and baseball.
To further cement the rejuvenated rivalry, JMU and ODU introduced the “TowneBank Royal Rivalry” in October 2022, which awards one point to each school that wins a head-to-head matchup or places higher at a mutual conference championship event, with 0.5 points given in the case of a tie. The school with the most points at the end of the year will receive the “Royal Rivalry Trophy.” In the challenge’s first year, JMU won 16.5-7.5.
According to the description on both JMU and ODU athletics’ websites, the schools say the challenge “will elevate the excitement and visibility” of the matchup, but according to some JMU student-athletes and coaches, that elevation is only for fans.
JMU baseball head coach Marlin Ikenberry called the challenge “something to make the fanbase appreciate the old rivalry and create a new one” in early June but added that in his team’s three matchups against the Monarchs this past spring, his players’ focus was on making a run in the Sun Belt tournament.
JMU volleyball senior outside hitter Miëtte Veldman couldn’t recall back in mid-June exactly when she first heard about the challenge, but she said she remembers hearing about it for football. Her coaches didn’t bring it up before the team’s two matches against the Monarchs in 2022. JMU women’s basketball redshirt junior center Kseniia Kozlova said two days later that she didn’t know there was a challenge at all.
There was one coach who said the challenge did motivate her team back in late June: JMU field hockey head coach Christy Morgan. Although she hates to say it, Morgan said the added bonus of a trophy gives extra motivation for her players.
“Is it all about the prize? No, it’s not all about the prize,” Morgan said. “But is it a little bit of an incentive at the end of a game that someone hands you a trophy because you were just a little bit better? Great, love it.”
Field hockey: Morgan against her Alma Mater
But field hockey already has motivation to beat ODU, despite not sharing a conference. (JMU is an independent program and the Monarchs are in the Big East.) That motivation comes from Morgan, who played for ODU from 1982-85 and was a three-time All-American — helping lead the Monarchs to three national championships under then-head coach Beth Anders.
“She was incredible,” Morgan said of her former coach, “and she was incredibly committed to us as people and as players, and so she demanded a lot, but that demand was based on caring and loving us. So those who wanted to be great accepted that challenge and really went after it, myself included.”
When Morgan became JMU’s head coach in 1991, she said there was “no love lost” between her and Anders, who helmed the Monarchs from 1980-2012.
“It was a battle,” Morgan said, “and initially, they killed us.”
Morgan lost her first six matchups against her alma mater. After falling in a close 1-0 game in 1991, the Dukes lost to ODU 7-0 then 10-1 in their two games in 1992, before the Monarchs’ third straight national championship.
After one of those early losses, Morgan said she remembers talking to then-Director of Athletics Dean Ehlers, who Morgan said was worried about her. When Ehlers asked Morgan what her goals were, she said to win a national championship. He responded by saying that she needed to slow down a bit because she had just gotten blown out by ODU. Morgan recalled clearly telling Ehlers, “Well then, that’s the target.”
JMU played the Monarchs four times in 1993. Each game was decided by a single goal, and Morgan got her first win in the last matchup of the season, eliminating the defending champions 1-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The next year, JMU won the national title after falling to ODU in the CAA championship.
Despite Anders leaving ODU in 2012 and the two teams no longer sharing a conference, Morgan said that the ODU game is still one her players “get up for” because they know how much it means to her.
“I want to beat that program more than I want to beat anybody,” Morgan said, “just because you’re making history when you beat ODU.”
The Monarchs defeated the Dukes 3-0 in this season’s matchup on Sunday, marking ODU’s third-straight win over JMU.
Baseball: The importance of in-state rivals
On the surface, Ikenberry is in a similar situation to the one Morgan used to be in. His former head coach from when he played at VMI from 1992-95, Chris Finwood, is now the head coach at ODU. Despite this, Ikenberry said he didn’t think of their matchups differently and added that the two coaches talked at the end of their final game, when the Dukes eliminated the Monarchs from the Sun Belt tournament 2-1 on May 23.
“He’s an amazing individual at turning it on and off,” Ikenberry said, “and we both have that ability to look at it in the sense of, ‘Hey, the game’s over with. Now we’re back to the way it was before the game starts.’”
No. 7 JMU baseball defeated No. 10 Old Dominion 2-1 in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Championship on Tuesday. The Dukes advance and will face No. 2 Southern Miss on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.
Ikenberry said there’s a lot of “brotherly love” between the two teams, not only because of the two head coaches but also because of the personal relationships between the players. There are players on both JMU and ODU’s rosters from the Tidewater region, which contains ODU’s campus in Norfolk as well as Virginia Beach, Newport News and Chesapeake.
“The 757 area code of baseball is really flourishing in the baseball community,” Ikenberry said. “We have plenty of kids from down there that play on our team.”
Many of these players have faced each other growing up and are now facing off again in the Sun Belt. Some players even have connections to the schools themselves, including ODU’s sophomore infielder/outfielder Luke Waters, whose father, Roger, was a quarterback and linebacker for JMU football from 1986-90.
But the motivation to beat ODU extends beyond just JMU’s ties to the Tidewater region. ODU is just one of many in-state teams that JMU has faced on a regular basis for decades. Ikenberry has had first-hand experience with this since he started his coaching career at William & Mary in 1998.
Back then, JMU, ODU and William & Mary were all members of the CAA, alongside fellow Virginia schools Richmond, George Mason and VCU. These schools made up the majority of the nine-member conference, and each developed a strong rivalry with one another.
“When ODU and JMU decided to go to the Sun Belt, I knew that rivalry would be special,” Ikenberry said.
Volleyball: The first of many matches
On the other side of the spectrum was volleyball — a team that had never played ODU, whose volleyball program debuted in 2021. Veldman said in June that the team had “only heard things” about the Monarchs playing style before competing against them last season, and they had to rely on film on top of that perspective.
Veldman recalled the first two matches in history being “really fun.” She said despite the Dukes not losing a single set to the Monarchs, the matches were far more competitive than the scores indicated. JMU’s average margin of victory across all six sets was 7.33, with the Dukes winning half of them by five points or less.
Looking forward, Veldman thinks that ODU could be a big rival for the program for the same reason it is for other teams — it’s in the Commonwealth.
“To have that competition in state is really cool,” Veldman said, “and to have so many in-state Virginia girls playing each other I think is very special.”
JMU’s dominance over ODU continued this season, with the Dukes picking up two three-set sweeps over the Monarchs on Oct. 6 and 7. Across six sets, the Dukes won five of them by six or more points.
JMU volleyball swept Old Dominion twice in as many days, picking up a 3-0 win on Friday and Saturday. Next, the Dukes head home to face Georgia State in another two-match weekend series starting on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Women’s basketball: Adding onto the legacy
Despite JMU and ODU having not played each other since 2013 before last winter, Kozlova said head coach Sean O’Regan made sure his players knew: “It’s not just like a regular game because we have a long-lasting rivalry between James Madison and Old Dominion.”
The two teams have played each other 76 times, with the Monarchs holding a commanding 51-25 advantage. For most of the rivalry, ODU dominated the CAA, winning 17 straight conference championships from 1992-2008.
This past season, the two teams played three times, with JMU winning all three matchups. JMU decisively won the first 68-54 at home, but the final two were far closer. The Dukes next faced the Monarchs on the road, surviving a 73-68 overtime thriller despite ODU leading by as much as six with 3:29 left in the extra five minutes.
The two teams met one last time in the Sun Belt tournament semifinals with a personal twist to the matchup. ODU had advanced to the semis following an 86-83 win over Troy that was capped off by a controversial ending when the Monarchs scored a layup with six players on the court.
Speaking to The Breeze in June, Kolova didn’t mention the controversy, but she did remember what her and her teammates said to assistant coach Neil Harrow, who was in his first year with the Dukes after spending seven seasons with Troy.
“After ODU beat Troy, we told Neil not to worry because we would beat ODU for him,” Kolova said.
JMU knocked off ODU 70-64, advancing to the Sun Belt championship game. Looking forward, Kozlova said last season’s series sweep will help give her motivation to continue beating ODU every time they play.
“Because we [beat] them three times last season, it will motivate me more to [beat] them again and again,” Kozlova said, “and make sure it stays this way.”
JMU women’s basketball finished on top in a close game against Old Dominion, 70-64, in the Sun Belt Conference semifinal game. The Dukes are now headed to the championship game versus Texas State on Monday, March 6 at 2 p.m.
Looking forward to football
Like volleyball, football’s history with ODU is not long. The Monarchs brought back their program in 2009 following a 69-year absence. The Dukes faced their in-state foe in 2011 and 2012 as CAA opponents before ODU made the jump to the FBS in 2013. Last season, the two teams met for the first time as Sun Belt opponents, with JMU winning 37-3.
While JMU and ODU don’t share a deep history, ODU head coach Ricky Rahne told The Breeze at Sun Belt Media Days in July that while he preaches going 1-0 every week rather than focusing on specific teams, he knows how important this rivalry is to his fanbase — partially because of how many JMU fans there are in the Tidewater region.
“There are a lot of times where JMU flags are flying right next to an ODU flag,” Rahne said, “and when you’re out cutting your lawn, you want to have some pride, and that’s a big part of it. But we know every game in our conference is going to be important.”
JMU head coach Curt Cignetti spoke about the importance of the rivalry on the Sun Belt’s Coaches’ Call on Monday. Like baseball, he mentioned how there are players on his roster from the Tidewater region, with 10 listed on the roster from either Newport News, Norfolk or Virginia Beach.
“A lot of our players know their players. They’ve got guys on their team that we’ve recruited that we’re familiar with,” Cignetti said. “It definitely adds a sort of extra spice to the game.”
This year’s matchup has already garnered plenty of interest. JMU announced on Oct. 16 that Bridgeforth Stadium will be sold out and broadcast on ESPNU. Kickoff is at 8 p.m.
While this weekend’s Homecoming festivities will focus on the football side of the rivalry, the history between the Dukes and Monarchs spans across many sports and is only continuing to grow. But no matter when, or what sport it is, JMU field hockey head coach Morgan’s desire is the same.
“I want to beat ’em,” she said, “I want to beat ‘em in every sport.”
