In 2017, Savannah Jo Dorsey was named to the All Mid-American Conference softball team for the third time in her college career. Dorsey went 25-9 as a starting pitcher for the Bobcats in 2017 and put up a 1.13 ERA while striking out 360 batters.
Now in 2020, Dorsey is about to enter her fourth year of medical school and is also taking care of her six-week-old baby, Kallen.
These were among the topics discussed when Dorsey joined the Mid-American Conference’s Instagram live feed Tuesday afternoon for a Q&A.
Dorsey looked back on her time at Ohio as a pitcher and discussed how much she enjoyed playing.
“There’s nothing like starting a game and knowing that the opponent is really good, and you have to trust your training, and you’re kind of free falling. Like you’ve worked up to that point and you have to trust it,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey also talked about competing against other high-level athletes in the MAC while reminiscing on high-stakes games such as MAC tournaments.
“There are girls that come out of MAC softball that are very, very good,” Dorsey said. “I never felt like I was playing a lower level. Especially in the MAC tournament when you get the best of the best, there are very high level athletes. I know a lot of them went on to play professional softball.”
With her team, she said there was a real “family feel,” and appreciated everything, from the all-nighters she spent studying as a biology major to the practices. She even called her old coach, Jodi Hermanek, “a second mom.”
Dorsey later talked about being a medical student when asked about her life after college. She is striving to be an emergency medical doctor when she graduates.
She explained how being a student athlete also better prepared her for the medical field.
“I didn’t have a lot of time,” Dorsey said. We were constantly going from weights over to practice, then to class, then to more practices and extra afterwards, then you study at the end of the night. I was pulling a lot of all-nighters with a lot of my teammates just to get work done. But then I get to medical school, and I’m like, ‘Wow, I have all of this time.’ I’m on my own schedule, so I felt like I had more time than I think a lot of the medical students felt like.”
Dorsey built up a strong resume as a star pitcher for the Bobcats. She made the All-MAC Freshman Team before going on to make the All-MAC team three times during her tenure at Ohio. She was named MAC Pitcher of the Year in 2016. She finished second in the nation among pitchers in total strikeouts in her senior season.
Dorsey was the last pitcher to throw a perfect game in the MAC tournament, having done so against Ball State in 2014.
“I miss pitching more than anything in the world,” Dorsey said. “I haven’t really found something I love quite as much as pitching.”
