YSU's Dowd a student of of the game

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State softball senior outfielder Sarah Dowd isn’t your typical senior. In fact, she’s only a senior athletically. Academically she’s already in grad school.

But it’s not as if Dowd is some bench warmer who is just helping keep the team’s grade point average high, she’s a force on the field as well. She’s second in school history in home runs (30) and is a career .298 hitter.

The pressures of school and athletics make for a stressful combination for any student-athlete, but for Dowd it took a lot of extra work to complete her undergraduate degree in psychology in three years.

“I really had to speed up my classes,” Dowd said. “I had to take one or two summer classes each year and then take a full classload each semester. I think I would take 17-18 credit hours each semester when 12 is the minimum. I had to take a lot more at once.”

The graduate is now studying counseling and it’s safe to say if sports and school weren’t taking up pretty much all of Dowd’s life as an undergrad, they’re definitely her life this season.

Return to Vindy.com and read Thursday's Vindicator sports section for more on this story.