HANOVER — Jen Williams’ residence has become a second home of sorts for Dartmouth College volunteer softball coach Sarah Goodman.
Goodman has known the Big Green’s head coach since her freshman year at Smith College, where Williams was working as a graduate assistant. After Williams got her first head coaching position at MIT, she added Goodman to her staff as the former Smith catcher pursued her master’s degree in bioengineering from Northeastern.
And following Williams’ first year at Dartmouth, she again brought in Goodman as a volunteer assistant — even while Goodman continues to live and work full-time as an engineer in the Boston area.
“She’s a tremendous catching coach, a tremendous pitch caller and also a really fantastic member of the staff,” Williams said. “She knows the right balance between being playful and being serious. She and I have a longstanding relationship, so she helps me feel like I can really relax and be who I am as a coach.”
Goodman commutes two hours or more to be with the Big Green for practices and games, and for longer trips, her wife, Vilma, and their dog come up as well, all staying with Williams. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Goodman’s day job has been mostly remote, so she can work from Hanover or wherever Dartmouth is playing.
In the preseason and during fall ball, Goodman spends her weekends with the Big Green, as they practice indoors on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in February before opening their schedule. She has been on every road trip this season, including non-conference tournaments in South Carolina and Tennessee and the spring break trip to Georgia and Alabama.
“I can work remotely from (Hanover) or on the bus ride down to Philadelphia to play Penn,” Goodman said. “What keeps me going is I love softball. I love the competitiveness, I love that it’s both a mental and physical sport, and most importantly the people. I find it very rewarding working with them.”
Williams, a former pitcher at Middlebury College, has entrusted Goodman with calling pitches, which Goodman sometimes did herself while catching at Smith. An auxiliary member of the battery, as she called herself, Goodman has helped senior lefthander Brooke Plonka emerge as Dartmouth’s bona fide pitching ace. Since the start of Ivy League play, Plonka’s ERA has improved by nearly a run and a half, and senior Maddie Augusto and freshman Megan Hagge have also made positive strides.
Goodman has also helped sophomore catcher Mary Beth Cahalan navigate her first season of college softball. Cahalan missed 11 games in March with an injury but has been an everyday starter since her return.
“The catchers have a lot of responsibilities, and so having someone who knows all the responsibilities of that job on your staff, that’s a huge help for our pitchers and our catcher,” Williams said. “Because I know she is managing pitchers and Mary Beth, I can worry more about what pitchers are doing mechanically, I can worry about the larger picture of the game in general and look at things from more of that thousand-foot view.”
In addition to her on-field duties, Goodman helps run the program’s social media accounts, a responsibility she first picked up at MIT. This week, she’s been creating appreciation posts for the Big Green’s five seniors before the elder statesmen are honored at Dartmouth’s final home series against Cornell this weekend.
Now wrapping up her third year overall and first full season on the coaching staff, Goodman said she plans to stick around as long as Williams wants her to. Vilma also traveled with the Big Green to Tennessee and keeps close tabs on the team’s stats as well as the rest of the Ivy League.
“I’m obviously grateful to have the opportunity to be plugged into the game at this level, and it’s a lot of fun,” Goodman said. “It’s a bit of a grind sometimes, but it speaks to the passion and love for the sport and the people that I have.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.