HARRISONBURG, Va. – As part of James Madison lacrosse's weekend home contest with Johns Hopkins, JMU Athletics celebrated the expansion of its Sentara Park venue with the addition of the Duenkel Athletic Complex, which features locker rooms, athletic training space and concessions areas for game day competition. Completed earlier in the fall, the project was made possible thanks to a generous $1 million gift from Doug and Alison Duenkel and family.
 
Alison Duenkel ('94) was a women's soccer student-athlete at JMU while Doug Duenkel played football at Virginia. Their daughter, Halle ('20), was a member of JMU's 2018 women's lacrosse national championship squad, a team that was honored during the Johns Hopkins match to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the achievement. Their son, Justin, was also a football student-athlete at Virginia, while their youngest son, Ryan, is one of the top-ranked high school lacrosse players in the country.
 
The gift contributed to the "Building Our Success" goal as part of Unleashed: The Campaign for James Madison University, the university's recently completed comprehensive campaign. Designed in coordination with Moseley Architects, the Duenkel Athletic Complex features the addition of a pair of stand-alone buildings bookending the main grandstand at Sentara Park. Building one, closest to Kelsey Lane, encompasses 2,400 square feet and includes a visiting team locker room, showers and restroom as well as a concessions area for guests and needed storage space for Athletics. Building two, closest to Neff Avenue, includes a locker room, coaches meeting room, showers and restroom for the home team as well as a sports medicine suite.
 
"We strive to ensure that all of our sport programs have the resources to compete at the highest level and have a great experience as student-athletes at James Madison University," Director of Athletics Jeff Bourne said. "It speaks highly that both Alison and Halle Duenkel enjoyed their experiences competing at JMU in a way that inspires them to pay it forward to the next generation of Dukes. We are extremely grateful for the Duenkel family's support and excited to celebrate this facility expansion with them."


 
Sentara Park, located on the corner of Neff Avenue and Port Republic Road, is the home to JMU lacrosse, men's soccer, women's soccer, track and field and cross country. Combined with the current renovation to the JMU Convocation Center, each of the programs that compete at Sentara Park (cross country, lacrosse, men's soccer, women's soccer, track and field) will have newly enhanced space for competition as well as for training and all behind-the-scenes activities.

The Sentara Park complex debuted in the fall of 2012 as University Park, and the athletics portion was renamed in 2016 as part of the university's first corporate naming partnership with Sentara Healthcare. In addition to the completed upgrades, during the fall of 2019, JMU replaced the original synthetic training surface at Sentara Park and in 2021 upgraded the facility's Daktronics video board.



Photos of the recognition are below. Additional photos of the Duenkel Athletic Complex are available on the Sentara Park facility webpage.