By Tom Haley
RUTLAND HERALD
Jessica Anderson had intended to play softball at St. Michael’s College. It seemed the natural course after batting .408 for her senior year at Springfield High School. Ten of her 22 bases hits were of the extra base variety.
But SMC coach Carla Hesler needed a goalie for the lacrosse team and Anderson had already played in the goal for Hesler’s Purple Knights on the field hockey field.
“I had planned to play softball at St. Michael’s but she was in a tough spot,” said Anderson, now Jessica Dodge and living in Billerica, Massachusetts. “She needed a goalie.”
Anderson immersed herself in learning the position of a lacrosse goalie.
“I needed to learn the sport and I needed to be open minded,” Dodge said.
“I started training right away. Reed Watson had coached at Temple and was very good at coaching goalies.
“He spent a week with me in Florida. He and his wife had both coached for a long time.”
There was a lot to learn that week. There are similarities to playing the position in field hockey but there are also many differences.
Dodge did not look at the switch from softball to lacrosse as a difficult one.
“I did not think of it as being a hard choice at the time,” Dodge said. “I saw it as an opportunity to play for a coach that I loved.”
That attitude helped her to make the transition to a new sport.
“I had to learn the angles and how to clear. I had to learn the rules of the game and how the game was played,” Dodge said.
It was field hockey, Alpine skiing and softball for her while wearing the green of the Springfield Cosmos.
She was on the Springfield field hockey team that won the Marble Valley League championship in 2000 and played for Vermont against New Hampshire in the Twin State Field Hockey Classic in 2001.
She was a US Lacrosse All-American at SMC and, in 2005, was the United States goalie for the U.S. women’s college lacrosse team that competed for the Melbourne Cup.
She has reaped plenty of honors and the latest will be induction into the Springfield High School Athletic Hall of Fame on March 5.
She married another Springfield High graduate Ed Dodge and their two sons, ages 7 and 11, are into sports.
“When I was at Springfield, I wanted to play football but they said it was only for boys. Now, my boys are playing football and they have girls on their team. I think it’s great,” Dodge said.
tom.haley @rutlandherald.com
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