Athlete Closeup: Megan Landry

Last season, senior softball pitcher Megan Landry managed, alongside her team, to win the regular season Southland Conference Championship title and was afterward awarded honors and awards like SLC Pitcher of the Year.

Now, she is currently playing her last season for the Colonels. By week two, she added another Pitcher of the Week to her collection.

According to softball head coach Angel Santiago, her competitive personality is the reason behind her success.

“Well, the best quality of Megan Landry is probably the competitive fighter in her. She doesn’t like to play the game to not win the game, so she is not out there to be kicked out. She is there to win,” Santiago said.

Landry has always had softball around her growing up. She found inspiration through her father and her brother, and it was the many hours in the ballparks with her family that really got her into the sport.

“I grew up going to ballparks every weekend. My dad played men’s slow pitch softball and then my brother started playing baseball, so I just kind of picked it up,” Landry said. “I played travel ball starting at 12 years old, and then I played in high school. I got offered a scholarship to Nicholls and have then played in college for the past four years.”

When Landry entered her senior year of high school, she ended up with a serious injury, which became a wake-up call for her love of the sport.

“I tore my ACL [senior year of high school], and that was a crucial time of being recruited and of making a decision. Do I want to play college softball? Can I even play college softball? Am I even good enough to play college softball?” Landry said. “But after I tore my ACL, it was like a wake-up call like, no, I do want to play for the next four years in college, if I’m blessed with the opportunity to.”

Landry quickly found herself with an offer from Nicholls despite her injury because Santiago still he believed in her and believed in a positive rehabilitation.

Furthermore, Landry’s success has not come all by herself, but through a combination of coaches, family and teammates.

According to Landry, her pitching coach Jessica Seamon has been a huge part of her success.

“Coach J definitely has made an impact on my career because she’s the genius behind our success. Like she’s the one who scouts every hitter that we face. She’s the one who calls the pitches. She’s the one who critiques my pitches and tells me exactly where to throw them to be successful,” Landry said.

However, as Landry has become a senior and developed as a player, more responsibility has been put on her shoulders.

Sophomore shortstop Bailey Hughes described Landry as a leader of the team through both her words and her actions.

“She is a leader…by using not only her words but her actions to motivate the team every day. If things aren’t going so great, she is in the middle of the circle fighting as hard as she can and pumping up the team while she does it,” Hughes said.

Santiago described Landry as a “team player.”

“Megan makes sure that everyone is on page with that, and when it comes to academics and stuff like that, she makes sure everybody is going to class, and she displays what a student-athlete should be all about,” Santiago said.

For Landry, playing softball is likely coming to an end after her college career.

“[After college] I could possibly enter a draft. I’m not sure if I’ll be drafted or not, but I think after Nicholls, I’ll be done with softball playing. I’ll still do lessons, probably coach for the rest of my life,” Landry said.

However, through softball, she said she has managed to gain a family of women on her team, a chance to give glory to God and many memories.

“Softball has given me the opportunity to give glory to God on a huge stage with a lot of people watching,” Landry said. “Softball has given me a family…Our team is really close, because all the girls have each other’s back and we love each other, and it’s a constant building each other up and leaning on each other for support and just figuring our life together. In the end, it has given me a lot of fun memories.”