CROOKSTON, Minn. - A high school junior puts on her glove and gets ready to pitch from the circle. Her club team is taking on the University of Minnesota Crookston and she is looking to do the best she possibly can to strikeout the college hitter at the plate. She is unsure of her future but it will soon come into the view. Fast forward, and that same pitcher, Paige Pitlick, is still pitching from the same circle but now she is donning the Maroon and Gold of Minnesota Crookston. Little did she know on that fateful fall trip to the Red River Valley that her life would change for the better and she would have the opportunity to get a four-year degree from the University of Minnesota and play NCAA Division II softball for the Golden Eagles.

17-year old Pitlick could never have imagined the life-changing opportunities that the town of just shy of 8,000 and the small campus nested among the vast fields would provide her. Four years later, Pitlick is on the verge of graduating and then attending pharmacy school at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She never could have imagined her life would be where it is now, but she wouldn't change a thing.

As we jump back to the beginning of her journey, we see a native of Jordan, Minn., who at the time was unsure of what her future held and what type of college experience she was looking for. While playing for the Minnesota Irish club program, she was granted her first glimpse of her bright future at the University of Minnesota Crookston.

"Club ball is when you can go around the nation and play tournaments and look to be recruited," Pitlick said. "So that actually brought me up to Crookston for the first time. It was during the fall of my junior year in high school, so that would have been 2014. We scrimmaged the Golden Eagle softball team. That is when I first met (Don) Stopa (the softball coach at the time). We got the tour of the campus. I already knew about the campus because it was a U of M system school and I was already looking at the U of M system. We continued talking after that. My club team went back up to Crookston the following year during the fall of my senior season. He ended up offering me and I ended up verbally committing that same day."

Prior to her commitment, Pitlick was looking at the idea of possibly going to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and not playing softball, or attending either the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay or North Dakota State University. However, her future began to become more clear with her visits to Minnesota Crookston.

"The campus is perfect," Pitlick said. "When you step on to campus, it feels like home. It is a real close family setting. Minnesota Crookston is a place where everyone cares about you and everyone knows your name. That comes from being a small campus and you aren't just a number. A lot of people say that, but it really makes the experience much more memorable and you can just take away so much more when you can put your heart and soul out there and people know who you are."

It was during her second visit to Minnesota Crookston that Pitlick absolutely knew that Crookston was the place for her to pursue her education and her softball dreams.

"I visited Crookston twice just to make sure that is what I wanted," stated Pitlick. "On my second visit I was certain that I loved the university and that this is where I want to call home. I came from a smaller town and Crookston really left a stamp on my heart."

When she first came to Minnesota Crookston, though it was clear the campus was the place for her, she was still unsure on what career path she wanted to take. Pitlick grew up around agriculture and had always been in 4-H, so she thought about pursuing agricultural education or animal science. However, she later decided that wasn't the route she wanted to take.

"I grew up around 4-H and my brother still has the goats at home," Pitlick said about her agricultural background. "Our family is working with the genetics of Boer Goats. It is what I knew and I started to research agriculture and discovered that I didn't know a thing about farming and the different crops and realized that wasn't for me. I took chemistry my junior year of high school and loved it. I was thinking about working in the medical profession but I knew that I didn't want to be a physician. I love the patient relationship, so I found that pharmacist was a balance of chemistry and that patient relationship. I still wasn't sure, so I looked into animal science but I decided we didn't need two veterinarians in the house since my brother is in his first year of vet school. So I decided on pharmacy. A couple of my cousins are pharmacists and I got to talk to them. I continued to look into the profession more and discovered it is what I wanted to do. I started to pursue that route and get my pre-requisites in."

From there, Pitlick took any opportunity she could to learn about the field, as she did job shadowing with pharmacists at North Memorial Hospital and Children's Minnesota in the Twin Cities area. The opportunities of being on a small campus at Minnesota Crookston, also helped to provide her with research opportunities with her professors as she was provided the chance to do two ground-breaking projects with Dr. Venugopal Mukku.

"Dr. Mukku and Dr. (Tony) Schroeder have been collaborating for several years on a Minnesota freshwater sponge project and I got the opportunity to work on some of the chemical components that they were able to get out of those sponges. I collaborated with Dr. Mukku a year ago and we looked at the extracts and what kind of components they are made of, and the active ingredients that are making them have the effect they do on bacteria. Some of them are known to have anti-inflammatory effects. So we were trying to figure out which components and which chemicals were making that happen. That has been very fun to work with all the different lab equipment. They built the Center for Collaborative Research (CCR) Lab in Sahlstrom Conference Center and so that is an amazing lab. Anyone that is able to utilize the lab, I highly recommend it. It is so innovative and so high-tech. I feel so overwhelmed in there, but it really is not hard to learn how to use the equipment."

Her second research opportunity provided her another opportunity to work with Dr. Mukku, but this time the research centered on a specific species of plant that originates in Africa.

"My other research that I did this fall, I worked with Dr. Mukku again and Dr. Kennedy Nyongbela is one of Dr. Mukku's doctoral students. We were looking at a plant native to Africa. We were able to look at different species of the plant and were looking at the extracts and the effects they have on bacteria. It was very informative and very interesting to me. I have loved those two research projects that I had the opportunity to do over the last two years."

The amazing opportunities provided in the lab with her professors at Minnesota Crookston have set Pitlick up for success in the classroom. She has been a staple on the NSIC All-Academic Team during her four years, and earned the prestigious NSIC Butch Raymond Scholarship, along with NSIC Myles Brand All-Academic with Distinction accolades during her senior year. Pitlick's classroom success is bound to continue as she moves on to the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

While her experience has been great in the classroom, Pitlick's story in the circle on the softball diamond has been just as successful. Growing up around sports, Pitlick knew sports was something she wanted to pursue coming from an athletic family. Her mom Shelly still holds high school rebounding records in Iowa, while her Grandpa had his time on the gridiron at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.

Pitlick came in to Minnesota Crookston and instantly formed endless bonds with her teammates, especially with the Senior Class, including Samantha Proctor, who was her freshman roommate and is someone she will be bonded with for life.

"Coming in you don't know anyone and you bond over being on the softball team," Pitlick stated. "Samantha (Proctor) and I met in the St. Cloud Dome and went to watch Minnesota Crookston play games there when we were both seniors in high school. We met and we decided to be roommates. Rocky (Bjorge) was our other roommate and she graduated last year. Everything just clicked and we became instant friends. You see each other every day when you are on a team together. You become closer than friends. Samantha and I actually call ourselves sisters because we know more about each other than we probably should know. We joke that we have to be friends because we know too much about each other."

It was in the early years of Pitlick's time in the program that those bonds grew closer. The Golden Eagles had their most wins at the time during her freshman season, but regressed during her sophomore season and then went through coaching changes. It was during this time that Pitlick became even closer to her teammates and those bonds were forged for a lifetime.

"For the first two years, we had some rough years, and then Mika (Rodriguez) got in during our sophomore season," Pitlick provided honestly. "We were able to bond over the struggle. It is not a super positive statement, but it is true. You become closer because of it. You get more of a drive and you set more goals. We were so excited to get this new class in this fall in 2019, because we knew what we were capable of. We were able to set our goals. We came in junior year and had all instantly bonded because we had the same goals and we had the same outlook on what this team could do."

Pitlick and the senior's vision for the Minnesota Crookston program was shared by Head Coach Travis Owen, who arrived prior to Pitlick's junior season. She immediately felt at ease with Coach Owen and this helped to set forth the culture that the current senior class for the Golden Eagles craved.

"Coach Owen was just so welcoming when he first got the job during the summer of 2018," Pitlick said fondly of her current coach. "He gave us all a call and introduced himself and he was equally as interested to get to know who we are. That was super welcoming and put us at ease that he wanted to get to know us, and that he cared for us. Being able to put together what we learned from the past couple of coaches and our transfers with their programs. It was nice to get those diverse cultures and those diverse mindsets so that we can come together with Coach Owen and we could put all of our ideas together and pick out what was going to work best for us. Coach Owen was the head of that effort because he was so open-minded to what we wanted to do. We could let him know if we wanted to change something up. Knowing what we want to set for the years to come has been crucial for what we want to get out of it."

Pitlick and the senior class was feeling great about this season. They had gotten off to their best start in program history with a 6-6 mark through their first three dome tournaments. The Golden Eagles went 0-4 in games in Topeka, Kan., but they still battled in all four games and were feeling great going into their Spring trip to Florida. It was at that time in Mid-March, that the Coronavirus Pandemic began to hit the United States and difficult decisions were made across the NCAA landscape to cancel Spring Sports seasons due to the health concerns created by Covid-19, the illness that comes from Coronavirus. Though it was a bittersweet ending to an amazing career at Minnesota Crookston for Pitlick,that included becoming the program's all-time leader in strikeouts.

"It is obviously bittersweet with the whole situation," Pitlick articulated concerning the cancellation of the 2020 softball season. "It has been awesome to be able to collaborate with the entire team, the new players and the returners. The returning players for next year will have a chip on their shoulders because we came out so strong this year and we were ready to fight until we got into the conference tournament. We knew we were going to make it to the conference tournament. We knew it was going to be hard, but we were ready to fight for it. That is the best thing that we will bring next year. That chip on their shoulder and that mentality that when our backs are against the wall, we are ready to fight. I think that working mentality that we are going to work every day and not get too emotional that is the best thing we got out this season. We are also so close as a team that the younger players knew that if they ever wanted any advice they can always come to us. We are big sisters to the younger players now. They are going to come back next year with that chip on their shoulders and work harder than ever."

Though her softball career ended abruptly, Pitlick had an amazing experience on and off the softball diamond at Minnesota Crookston. It is truly an experience that she wouldn't trade for the world.

"No it isn't at all what I expected it to be, it is so much more than that," Pitlick proclaimed. "I obviously had high expectations with it being in the U of M system but looking back four years ago, I could have never imagined where I am at in life and who I have had the opportunity to meet because of all the opportunities I have had at UMN Crookston. I have been able to make so many memories during my four years as a student at Minnesota Crookston. It is something I would never trade and would never have imagined for myself and I am beyond happy with my experience."

Pitlick is proud of her experience at Minnesota Crookston. It provided her life-changing friendships and opportunities in the classroom and in the laboratory. It allowed her to improve as a softball pitcher, from a pitcher that she described as "not good" as a freshman, to the program's all-time leader in strikeouts. While she is proud of her records and her accomplishments at Minnesota Crookston, the legacy that Pitlick wants to leave as a Golden Eagle is that of a great teammate.

"I for sure want to be known as one of the best teammates," Pitlick stated. "That is something that is forever. That shows my character and everything outside of softball that you can never measure in numbers. I want to be remembered as one of the best teammates that was always supportive and someone that you could go to and work with. That goes along with being one of the best pitchers. I hope my records are broken next year because that means our culture and our team is just that much better. I hope my records are broken in the next five years. I don't need to be in the record books. I hope the team keeps getting better and better because that means it started with us."

Pitlick has accomplished amazing things at Minnesota Crookston that she never could have imagined when she first set foot on campus as a high school student. Though the ending of her story has been bittersweet, it is clear when you talk to the amazing young lady of the lasting impression her soon-to-be Alma Mater has left on her. But this young future pharmacist has left that same impression on the people she has encountered in her time at Minnesota Crookston, whether it be on the softball field, in the classroom, or on the cross country course, in a sport she took up to become the rare two-sport student-athlete as a senior. Minnesota Crookston will be proud to call Paige Pitlick an alumnus and can't wait to see the amazing things she accomplishes as a pharmacist.