Nov. 11, 2020: Megan Eurich officially signs with Concordia
An impressionable young Megan Eurich watched Gold Medal Olympian Jennie Finch whiz softballs past flummoxed hitters and wanted to be just like her. The Gretna native Eurich got her start when her father Tim built a tunnel in the family’s basement, specifically designed for Megan to hone her pitching skills. In that basement sat a pitching mat signed by Finch herself. Megan was hooked.
For Megan, it wasn’t the ping of the bat or the big home run that attracted her to the game of softball. Throughout her competitive career, she’s loved nothing more than finding herself in a difficult jam and then wriggling out of it. She’s that ace pitcher that kills the opposition’s momentum, drowning out the sing-song chants from the other dugout.
“It’s the mental game,” says Eurich of what she loves most about pitching. “There are not a lot of people who can go out there and stay mentally in the game and stay focused on the game the whole seven innings. I am able to do that for the most part. There are times when I’m faced with tough situations where it can be hard to do that. One of my favorite things to do is go pitch in a tight spot because I know I have the ability to get a ground ball or flyball, or whatever we need. I just love pitching in those situations.”
It's safe to say the Concordia University, Nebraska Softball program did not know what it had when Megan arrived at the start of the 2021 fall semester. Recruited by previous Head Coach Shawn Semler and then coached her freshman year by new Head Coach Tatum Edwards, Megan had to bide her time. But as a junior in 2024, Megan seized her opportunity and forced GPAC and NAIA foes to take notice. Megan was named a GPAC First Team All-Conference award winner after posting an 18-10 record and sparkling 2.56 ERA.
This came from the right arm of someone recruited without any a lot of fanfare. Her high school team, the Gretna Dragons, tweeted her official signing on November 11, 2020, and referred to Megan as a “selfless teammate and person.” As a sign of the times, the coaches and staff standing behind Megan in her signing day photo were adorned in masks. There may have been an expectation for Megan to play varsity as a freshman, but there were no guarantees for someone whose name did not appear on any lists of all-state honorees. Nor were there any media members requesting to interview or profile her in the local news.
But those who may have doubted ‘Megs’ would become a star at the collegiate level didn’t know her or how much time and energy she had invested in her craft. Said Megan, “When I came on my tour, I saw the history board downstairs (in Walz) and I was like, ‘If I commit here, my name is going to be on that board.’ The fact that I was able to accomplish that is crazy to me. The day we were playing and I had gotten that 194th strikeout, I didn’t even know I had gotten it until the game was over. It was a crazy feeling knowing that I had done something big like that in my softball career that I never thought I’d be able to accomplish.”
That’s right, the 194 strikeouts in a single season were more than any of the other great pitchers in program history have ever produced. More than Nicole Sempek. More than Amanda Beeson. And more than the Concordia Hall of Famer Mindy Evans and the accomplished Camry Moore of recent years. In fact, Moore was someone Megan looked up to during her freshman season of 2022. At the time, it was Moore’s senior season, and she was the unquestioned leader of the pitching staff.
As someone used to starting games in the circle, Megan was forced to adapt to a role as a reliever who was typically called upon when either Moore or fellow Gretna High School alum Jerzi Rowe ran into trouble. Moore and Rowe handled the vast majority of the pitching duties for a team characterized by inconsistency. Megan wound up appearing in 17 games with a total of 42.2 innings pitched. It was a year of learning for Megan.
“I really wasn’t used to that because all through club ball and high school ball, I was always a starter,” Eurich said. “I would start game one and finish game one. Then when I got here, the roles reversed and I was a reliever. I always had this thought that I should be out there the entire game. I also feel like I learned a lot from those pitchers. Camry Moore was a great pitcher here. I learned a lot from her because she was so much higher up than me. I was able to take from her different pitches and how she used her mental game. I learned from Jerzi Rowe as well. I played with her in Gretna, so there was a bond that we already had.”
Ready or not, Megan was going to get her chance to start as a sophomore in 2023. That season, she logged the most innings (136) of anyone on the team and pitched to a 3.76 ERA in 24 games (21 starts). In perhaps her best outing, late that season, Eurich went eight innings and held Briar Cliff without an earned run on five hits and one walk. It was a step forward, but could Eurich truly carry the mail as a college team’s top pitcher?
Megan answered affirmatively last season. She fired nine shutouts, including five separate two-hitters, establishing herself as one of the league’s top pitchers. Not only has she increased her velocity, Megan has fine-tuned her control while honing the fastball and secondary pitches. Other dynamics have fallen into place with Head Coach Brock Culler providing the program stability. Culler has done nothing but instill confidence in Megan’s abilities.
“When her career’s all over, it’s going to be a really cool story,” Culler said. “She’s had an outstanding journey. Really good work ethic. Great head on her shoulders. She’s really become more of a student of the game and understands more of the strategic side of pitching. I think that was a big reason for her success last year. This year, she’s got a lot of personal goals and team goals. She’s going to build on the momentum from last year. She really wants to close out her career and have a really good season this year for her team.”
The passion for pitching is one way in which Megan has veered from her twin sister Lauren. At the same time, Lauren is a huge piece of Megan’s support system that includes her parents Tim and Amy. When Lauren attends Concordia Softball games, she’s normally taking photos of Megan.
Says Megan, “She’s amazing. She’s very supportive with everything. I always see her at games supporting me. She’s always there taking pictures with her camera that she shows me later on. Along with my parents, she is very connected with the sport because I’ve been playing it since I was a little girl. She’s a really good person to have alongside me. On senior day, I know it will be very emotional for me because I’ll be surrounded by all my teammates and coaches and my family.”
Not that Megan wants time to leap forward to senior day, but she is the type of person who has a plan for what’s coming next. A Criminal Justice major, Eurich is an NAIA Scholar-Athlete with hopes of one day becoming a detective for the FBI. As she says, “That’s kind of my dream goal.”
It’s clear Megan knows something about following and chasing down her dreams. She never stopped believing that one day she would become the pitcher and the person that she has.
As Megan described her college recruiting story, she traced the journey back to when the pitching bug first bit her. As Megs told the story, “I don’t even know where to start. I started playing softball when I was about eight years old. I remember playing for a team that needed a pitcher, so I was like, I’m going to try being a pitcher. I tried that out and I just started throwing strikes constantly. I kind of self-taught myself all the way up until high school. Here and there I had some different pitching coaches. I found my way to Concordia because I knew some players who had already graduated that played here and really wanted me to come here and take a tour of the school.”
For now, Megs will focus in on academics and on her hopes of pushing Concordia Softball to heights she and her fellow seniors have not yet experienced at the college level. There’s still plenty of time for Megan’s story to become even cooler. There just might be youngsters out there watching who see her as their Jennie Finch.
“I’m thankful for my teammates and coaches and all the hard work it took during the offseason to get me to that place,” Megan said. “My coaches and teammates are a big part of the accomplishments.”