Kevin Grundhoffer, staff writer

A little over a year ago, junior Morgann Paaske didn’t know if she’d ever play softball again. She had attended four different colleges, played two different sports and it just wasn’t working out. She dropped out in the spring of 2023 in order to take care of her sick father and she thought this was the end of her softball career. 

This wasn’t the first time that she had to stay close to home because of health issues. In the spring of her high school senior year she was diagnosed with lupus. In order to stay close to her doctors, the native of Crystal Lake, Illinois decided to decommit from UW-Eau Claire and go to a small junior college. 

After that, she bounced around to a few different division three schools, but it was the words of her father that brought her to Augsburg. He told her as he went into surgery that if he didn’t make it that she had to go back to softball. Luckily, he recovered, but she still decided to take one more shot. Her younger sister Marissa Paaske is a goalie on the hockey team here at Augsburg. Morgann decided to give it one more try and go to Augsburg to be close to her sister. She liked the school and the softball team as a whole. Her deciding factor in coming to Augsburg was the fact that her sister Marissa “never wanted to come home. […] There must be something pretty special about this school if a homebody like her doesn’t want to come home that often,” said Morgann in an interview with the Echo. 

It turned out to not only work out for her, but to work very well for the Auggie Softball team. Morgann has been an instant success this season as she won MIAC Player of the Week honors in her first week as an Auggie for her pitching performance against North Central. For not playing softball in two years, some would say that it would be an insurmountable task to accomplish. This past week, she won MIAC Player of the Week again for her stellar pitching as well as hitting a home run. She went 3-0, with a 0.78 ERA, 13 strikeouts and a 1.00 WHIP across 18 innings pitched. 

Morgann has been instrumental in the Auggies recent success and was the missing piece that they needed in their pitching rotation. This season she has a 3.39 ERA with a 1.51 WHIP and a 10-3 record with seven complete game shutouts. She mentioned how she struggled in her first semester here at Augsburg with her confidence on the softball field. “I thought about quitting a lot but I thought of what my dad said so I stuck it out.”

There’s a lot to be learned from a story like this. Through all the twists, turns and hardships in life, you must keep fighting. Morgann’s life has been anything but easy. However, she found a way to persevere. As much as this article is about her softball accolades, it is just as much about what she’s overcome to get this far.