Reaching new heights her senior season

It didn’t take Lisa Dodd very long to find a purpose in life. From the moment Dodd was born, it was almost as if she had a destiny.

“The first word that came out of her mouth was “˜ball,'” said Lisa’s dad, Tom Dodd, who played baseball in the early ’70s at UC Irvine under former UCLA coach Gary Adams. “There were sports all over the house. She would go to all my games and play with sports stuff in the crib.”

In her senior year on the UCLA softball team, Dodd is savoring a season in which her enduring passion for the game has been truly represented with results on the field.

After three solid years for the Bruins, her senior season has been one in which she has taken her game to a new level and finally lived up to the expectations that were placed on her coming to UCLA.

Just as important for the Bruin team, with a mix of young players and veterans that is beginning to realize its potential, has been Dodd’s development as a leader of the team.

“She’s been everything for us,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “She is to me the reason why we’ve steadied out a little bit. She’s the key to me for us and I think she’s done a great job of stepping up and being a leader in her senior year.”

Growing up

As soon as Dodd was capable of playing ball, her father was there to guide her and share his passion for baseball.

“I have pictures of when I was like 3 or 4 playing baseball with my dad,” Dodd said. “From an early age, I just loved to play and it’s just grown from there.”

Dodd’s father took it upon himself to be her personal coach early on, coaching his daughter on an individual level while also coaching all of her teams.

“I’ve had a strong influence on her,” Tom Dodd said. “I was her sole coach for the first 12 years. I coached her when she was 5 years old and I coached her in soccer. … I knew more than the average volunteer guy and I wanted to make sure it was a strong environment for her.”

Even today, Dodd’s father is present at all of the UCLA home games and has even begun to travel on the road to see his daughter play in her senior season.

“I’ve worked with him every day for 18 years,” Dodd said. “He’s so insightful. Once in awhile, you have the whole father-daughter conflict, where you say to yourself, “˜Don’t listen to him,’ or whatever. But once I get past the ego trip, he knows so much more than I ever will and just having him there even after the game helps me get to the next level.”

When Dodd was 10, she began to play in a boys baseball league and was one of the best players in the league. She moved to softball a couple of years later where she was instantly a star both as a pitcher and a hitter.

By the time she was a freshman in high school, the Orange County Batbusters 18-and-under club team wanted her to play for them.

“When she got to 13 and 14 and Batbusters wanted her, I had to make a decision to keep her or let her go, and after talking it over as a family, we decided to let her play,” Tom Dodd said. “That’s when she began to get influence from others. She still practiced with me, but she was starting to make some of her own decisions.”

She shined both as a member of the Batbusters and as a softball and soccer player at Mira Mesa High School in San Diego.

Dodd led Mira Mesa to two CIF Championships in softball, and after transferring to University City high school for her senior year, won a CIF Championship there as well. In her high school career, Dodd had a .503 career batting average along with a 0.12 career ERA in 493 innings pitched. Her spectacular senior season at University City earned her the Gatorade State and National Softball Player of the Year and a billing as one of the nation’s top recruits.

Living up to expectations

When Dodd entered UCLA as a freshman, she was supposed to instantly lead the Bruins to new heights.

Dodd fulfilled her end of the bargain as she was an instant contributor on a 2004 team that struggled throughout the season, but came together at the end and won a national title. That season, Dodd hit .268 with six home runs and 27 RBIs and had by far her best season on the mound, going 15-2 with a 0.79 ERA as the team’s second pitcher behind former star Keira Goerl.

Dodd also began to develop her lasting reputation as a clutch hitter, hitting .412 in the Women’s College World Series.

“I think when you come in as a freshman, it’s kind of an unknown,” Dodd said. “You watch the girls on TV and they seem so much better than you and you’re almost scared and nervous to come in. At the time, I thought I was under them, but looking back, I know that I was right there with them and could hang with the best of them.”

While the 2004 season was a great start for what seemed like a surefire blooming star in Dodd, the numbers stagnated and even regressed a little bit in 2005 and 2006.

As a pitcher, Dodd remained consistently solid in the No. 2 role behind ace Anjelica Selden, going 9-6 with a 1.88 ERA in her sophomore season and 15-2 with a 1.74 ERA as a junior. But as a hitter, there was a lot left to be desired. Dodd batted just .211 in 2005 and just .230 in 2006.

This season has been an entirely different story. Dodd, who had knee surgery after last season, is hitting .392 with a team-leading 12 home runs and 41 RBIs, which are both career-highs already. She also leads the team in on-base percentage (.513) and slugging percentage (.750). While her knee surgery, along with the emergence of freshmen pitchers Whitney Baker and Megan Langenfeld, have limited her innings on the mound this season, she has also been solid in the field, playing primarily second base ““ a position she hadn’t played since her freshman season.

“I just feel more comfortable and confident in the box,” Dodd said. “When I had surgery earlier this season, I had a chance to really focus on my mechanics and actually seeing the ball instead of just swinging at it.”

“Lisa Dodd is money,” junior outfielder Krista Colburn said. “She’s just clutch. I can’t say enough about what she does for our team. I know if I get on base, she’ll get me in. I have faith in all my teammates but she’s my girl for sure. She’s so clutch.”

Future

With softball out of the Olympics after 2008 and a U.S. roster that is pretty much set in stone for those games, Dodd will likely have to look elsewhere to continue her career.

Dodd mentioned playing in a professional European league as a possibility and thinks that coaching is another possibility. Either way, the game she has grown up playing and devoted her life to will be a part of whatever she ends up doing after college.

“It ends maybe as a competitive sport where you’re aiming for a national championship, but it doesn’t end in that there are so many ways you can go with it,” Dodd said.

For now though, she remains solely focused on the ultimate goal of winning a national title.

For the Bruins, winning a title this year would be a huge challenge given the fact that the season has been full of ups and downs and that there are three freshman starters who haven’t yet experienced playoff competition.

Then again, the team had a very similar makeup when the Bruins won the World Series in Dodd’s freshman year. If Dodd and her eight senior teammates were to leave UCLA the same way they came in ““ with a title ““ it would be a monumental accomplishment.

“I’m at the point now where I want another ring and I’ll do whatever it takes to get one,” Dodd said. “As a freshman, you can’t appreciate the struggle of four years. We’re so fortunate to come in and win the first one and say, “˜Oh, this is easy.’ But then you go the next year with a team that’s more talented and don’t win. Then the next year you struggle. … It means a lot to a lot of us. We’re all excited and comfortable with where we are and are aiming our focus to the end.”

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