Basketball, Softball
Favorite athlete: Nick Foles
Favorite team: Philadelphia 76ers
Favorite memory competing in sports: My favorite memory is during my senior year when we were down 20 at half against Quakertown and came back to win
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: The funniest thing that happened was when Coach Becker said "Tori Finnegan is now 998 points away from 1,000 points" to the whole school on the announcements after she scored her first varsity point freshman year
Music on playlist: The Weeknd
Future plans: Attend Rutgers University, undecided on my major
Words to live by: "Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise" -Kobe Bryant
One goal before turning 30: Travel to Europe, specifically Italy
One thing people don’t know about me: I can juggle and ride a unicycle!
By Ed Morrone
Jess Dugo was practically born with a basketball in her hands, while her baptism as a softball catcher a few years later came with a plethora of pitches and foul tips careening all over her 8-year-old body thanks to a mischievous older brother.
She loved every single minute of it.
Dugo is a senior two-sport standout at Lower Moreland, and her reliable presence has helped the Lions’ transition to Suburban One by being a stalwart as the basketball team’s point guard and softball program’s catcher. But before she got to high school, Dugo was indoctrinated into athletics by sport-crazed family members.
Before even participating in organized sports, Dugo said her mother recounted to her that by the time she was 3 or 4 years old, Dugo would disappear downstairs. When she eventually resurfaced, she was always holding or dribbling a basketball. That ultimately led her to an in-house travel team around fourth grade, where she began forming bonds with girls she still plays with to this day.
Softball, meanwhile, was another story entirely. It takes a special kind of crazy to sign up for all the knicks and bruises a catcher wears, but in Dugo’s situation, she never really had a choice in the matter.
“When I was 8, I went to a neighbor’s house with my 11-year-old brother and his friend, and we found some hockey goalie equipment,” Dugo recalled. “They made me put it on and catch for them, so they were just firing balls at me even though I was really young.”
Regardless of the roads she took to get there, Dugo was hooked on both sports, even if she was taking a beating behind the plate on the diamond.
“I never played the outfield, and maybe played third base a couple times,” she said. “But really, I’ve been a catcher my entire life. I’m just such a competitive person, and I feel like as a catcher I can control the game more. If I wasn’t the catcher, I’d be bored. You’re involved in every single play, every pitch that the pitcher throws. I like being in control of the game because I feel it helps us win.”
Dugo has been head coach Karen Reese’s varsity catcher for all four of her years, serving as a steady presence as the team transitioned to Suburban One last year following its time in the Bicentennial Athletic League. The Lions finished in third place in the SOL Freedom Division, behind William Tennent and Upper Moreland.
According to Reese, Dugo’s greatest strengths are on the defensive side, but Dugo has become a more well-rounded player as her career has progressed.
“I wish I had more Jess Dugo’s,” Reese said. “Not a big girl, but she’s strong and powerful. Behind the plate, she’s our defensive player of the year. She blocks well, is able to call pitches herself and frames the ball well. She’s very visual and sees the whole field. Not much gets past her, and her arm is strong to throw down to the bases.
“Offensively, she’s more of a bunter than a power hitter, and she’s used the bunting, as well as taking walks, to get on base. When she gets on, she usually scores, because she’s very fast. Jess is very self-motivated and hard on herself when she doesn’t live up to her own expectations. She is a highly competitive, quiet leader.”
As Lower Moreland gets set to kick off its 2022 season (Dugo’s last as a high school athlete), Dugo wants to win the league one time before graduating. She also wants to continue her consistent play behind the plate while working to improve her offensive game.
“Individually, I need to get better at hitting because it’s my weakness,” she said. “When I get on base, I’m able to steal bases and score because of my quickness, so my ability to bunt and be quick is the best combination for me.
“I also want to lead the team, because as I’ve gotten older that ability has come out more. I was quiet as a freshman and sophomore, and I’m introverted outside of sports, but I’m a completely different person when I step on the court or field. Now that I’m more experienced, I enjoy encouraging my teammates and helping everyone succeed.”
Rich Becker is Dugo’s head basketball coach at Lower Moreland, and he readily admitted he wasn’t quite sure what he had in Dugo her first two seasons. Becker knew of Dugo going back to when she was playing in middle school, so he was aware she had talent but uncertain if she would become a standout player or just another body. Dugo was one of the better jayvee players the Lions had as a freshman and sophomore, and by that second season she was starting to see some varsity action as a swing player.
However, it wasn’t until the first game of Dugo’s COVID-shortened junior season where she truly announced her presence to Becker and the rest of Suburban One. In that road game against Springfield in Jan. 2021, things started looking promising for Dugo, who scored 13 points through three quarters in a tightly-contested league contest.
Then came the eruption. Dugo scored 20 of her career-high 33 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, leading the Lions to a 53-50 win. Becker was completely floored.
“Her first two years, I knew she had talent, but I wasn’t sure if she was a legitimate varsity player,” he said. “Then, everything clicked. She won that game for us, and it was a big moment for Jess, because prior to that she had struggled to adjust. It was nice to see her make that jump.
“Her sophomore year, she could shoot a little bit, so it was just a matter of working on her confidence and getting her to a point where if she’s taking an outside shot, she expects it’s going in. She exploded in that game and realized she belonged. Then, she really embraced the leader role, being the one willing to step up and not be afraid to take the big shot.”
The Lions went 5-7 overall and 5-5 in league play in Dugo’s junior season, earning her second team all-league honors. Not wanting to become complacent in her success, Dugo attacked the offseason, adding more elements to her game to make her more well-rounded. Becker said Dugo’s strength has always been the perimeter shot, but now she’s developed a midrange game and a running, floating layup. As a result of spending more time in the lane and post, Dugo also became Lower Moreland’s most frequent visitor to the foul line as well as the team’s highest percentage shooter there.
“Jess is never afraid,” Becker said. “It just speaks to her character and how hard she works. In the four years I’ve been coaching her, she’s never had one bad practice where she mailed it in. She takes no shortcuts.”
And while Lower Moreland did not qualify for the four-team Class 4A postseason bracket, Dugo and the Lions still had a winning season overall, posting an 11-10 record with an 8-8 mark in the league. Both marks were good for third place behind Upper Moreland and New Hope-Solebury, a solid showing for a small school still finding its way in a league with much larger student bodies. This time around, Dugo found herself a first team SOL selection, even after a prolonged midseason shooting slump had her searching for answers.
Luckily, she finished strong in the team’s final couple of games, ending the season averaging 10.5 points and four rebounds per game while finishing second in steals and defensive deflections.
“We wanted a winning season, and my only regret is not making the playoffs,” Dugo said. “But I’m still really proud of what we accomplished. The shooting slump was hard. Ever since I was younger, my mental health has been a struggle to get past. Once I focus on something bad that’s happening, it’s all I can think about, to the point it affects my basketball and softball lives. But my coaches kept encouraging me and my teammates kept feeding me the ball even if I was 0-for-10. That helped me get my confidence and execution back.”
Once Dugo wraps her final softball season and graduates from Lower Moreland, she’ll be bound for Rutgers University. After being a student at such a small school, Dugo has desires to see what life is like on the other side, and Rutgers’ approximately 50,000 undergraduate students will allow her that luxury. She also loves the fact that Rutgers is situated right between Philadelphia and New York and expressed a desire to spend more time exploring Manhattan.
As far as majors are concerned, Dugo is undecided, although she did mention being drawn to both Environmental Science and Engineering as possible pursuits. And while she may still pursue athletics, it would be at the club level. “I’ll definitely look into it, because I can’t imagine my life without sports,” she said. “They’re my biggest hobby, so I don’t know what I’d do without them.”
Away from her athletic and scholastic endeavors, Dugo expressed a strong desire to travel in her future and hopes that her wanderlust takes her to Europe. A history buff, Dugo is especially drawn to Italy and all the art, museums and churches that were born out of the Renaissance. She listed Sicily and Florence as the two locations she’d like to visit most.
“I’ve never traveled outside the country, but my grandma went to Sicily and told me how beautiful it was,” Dugo said. “And we learned about Florence in AP European History. I want to check out all of the historical art. I love history and learning about things that happened in the past and how that impacts life today.”
Dugo has certainly impacted the lives of Reese and Becker, both of whom expressed joy of having spent the last couple of years in her orbit.
“There’s no drama with Jess, so what you see is what you get,” Reese said. “Players look up to her, she never gives up and is very resilient. That attitude is contagious. She’s her own person for sure, a hard worker who is self-motivated and very competitive. She’s kind, nice to everybody and is just a good person, and for me that’s nice to be around.”
Unlike Reese, Becker has also gotten to know Dugo as her teacher in the classroom, serving as her instructor in honors Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus in 10th and 11th grade, respectively.
“All of her teachers are such big fans of Jess,” Becker said. “She’s an A-student, but you’d never know it because of the way she goes about it. She doesn’t brag, she just goes out there to perform, which fits her demeanor to a tee. When you have a kid like Jess (as a coach and teacher) who buys into all the little things, you don’t want to disappoint her. She challenges me to be as prepared as she is every single day. Such a good, steady person: someone who learns easily and is a person you can have a conversation with about anything.”
As for Dugo, she is grateful that her scrappy little high school helped her forge such a definitive identity through athletics. It’s something she’ll always appreciate and never forget, even as she moves on from one of the smallest schools in Suburban One to one of the largest on the east coast.
“The best part of sports has been the friendships I’ve formed on and off the court and field,” Dugo said. “I can’t imagine my life without sports. I loved always being an underdog, especially when we switched leagues and all had to step up. The entire mindset shifted for our whole team. We always had a blast, no matter how badly we may have lost a game.
“The friendships I’ve formed from both sports, I hope they last forever.”
