LYNCHBURG, Va. – As the University of Lynchburg’s athletic programs enter the 2025 fall season, coordinating travel schedules has become increasingly complex as coaches seek to play stronger competition across the country.
During the offseason, coaches build team schedules that balance required conference matchups with additional nonconference games. The Old Dominion Athletic Conference mandates competition against league opponents, but teams have flexibility to schedule nonconference contests against any Division III program.
For many programs, facing easy competition early in the season helps to build confidence. In Lynchburg, however, the competition grows as teams heighten their expectations of a postseason run.
Madelyn Boyce, a member of the Lynchburg women’s soccer team, understands the importance of balancing quality out-of-town opponents with easier, local competition.
“You have to factor in confidence and talent, so if we’re playing the number one, two or three teams, that can tank a team,” Boyce notes. “It can be hard to reset and learn from that.”
On the other hand, winning against easier opponents fails to attract the attention of the NCAA committees that decide which teams qualify for the NCAA Tournament. With a reconfigured NCAA Power Index, which relies on metrics and analytics to rank the most qualified teams for at-large bids, facing tough opponents is becoming necessary to make it to the postseason.
For athletic director Jon Waters, balancing the schedule prepares teams for success after the regular season.
“This system assigns value to each game you play,” says Waters. “We have to be very prescriptive about the schedule we play. It doesn’t provide value to win 30 games if they’re all against bad teams because your NPI would be really low.”
Much of the scheduling is dependent on a team’s trajectory and number of upperclassmen.
“As you’re building your program, you don’t want to jump into those better games until you’re ready,” Waters mentions. “The magic is ultimately constructing a schedule that you know will have quality, and then performing in a great way in relation to that schedule.”
Designing the optimal schedule also factors in several financial logistics. At the Division III level, team travel forces athletic directors to think creatively about distributing each team’s budget.
As many of the best DIII squads are located several states away, Waters acknowledges the importance of creating opportunities for Lynchburg teams to compete at the highest level.
“Student-athletes see the value and understand the importance of competing at a high level,” Waters says. “It’s a testimony to the brilliance of our coaches in that they can develop their team mindset to recognize how all games are treated the same.”
Investing in travel extends beyond the athletic department; for groups like the Lynchburg field hockey team, fundraising plays a vital role in making long road trips a reality.
“Coaches have done an amazing job of fundraising for bigger games they know they have to play,” Waters states. “Field hockey is the prime example in their upcoming trip, where they’re playing a single game in Maine. They fundraised the money through donors and their indoor tournament, so they can make the flight.”
In the fall of 2025, each team’s longest road trip covers over 300 miles. These regular-season statistics fail to capture the extra distance trekked during the postseason, which typically features locations even further away from the Hill City.
To facilitate the long hours spent on bus rides, the Lynchburg athletics department develops strategies to combine multiple games into one day or weekend.
While several teams play over ten games per season at other institutions, doubleheaders and early-season tournaments are becoming the simple solution. Doubleheaders and early-season tournaments are becoming the solution to schedule multiple games in one day so coaches can limit the time athletes spend on the bus.
“How strategically you position buses and travel is very important,” says Waters. “When I came to Lynchburg 10 years ago, a single-day bus trip was $750. Right now, that same trip is $1,250.”
Even with 19 road games on the schedule, the volleyball team only travels 48 more miles to opposing venues than the field hockey team, which plays 11 matches on the road. With seven games crammed into the first two road trips to begin the season, the team cuts bus costs while filling a considerable portion of the nonconference slate (“2025 Women’s Volleyball”).
Beyond the budget, limiting the number of back-and-forth trips also helps student-athletes. As creatures of habit, many newcomers enjoy the comfort of home before playing the biggest games on the schedule.
“If you don’t like eating hotel food or sleeping in a different bed, they can all affect your game,” Boyce says.
As fall teams continue to progress and seek higher competition, the department’s vision for the future lies in bolstering the hometown facilities to keep bringing quality opponents to Lynchburg.
“Ideally, the facilities that we have can continue to improve so we can host big games,” Waters states. “In that case, it levels out every other year, so you’re not spending extra money on travel.”
To view team schedules for the fall season, visit www.lynchburgsports.com.
