When he arrived at Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC prior to the 2024 USL Championship season, all Eric Dick was looking for was a chance.

On Saturday afternoon, as he completed what could be described as a perfect postseason, he repaid the club’s belief.

In producing his second consecutive five-save shutout to highlight a sterling all-around command of his penalty area, plus a key shootout save, the 31-year-old helped lead the Hounds as they took a 5-3 victory from the spot against FC Tulsa to claim the 2025 USL Championship title.

“I’m just so thankful for Pittsburgh for taking a chance on me,” said Dick in the build-up to the game. “These past few years, I’ve just tried my best to show what I can do, just be the goalie that they need me to be. And I’ve fallen short here and there, and there’s times where I wish I would have been better, but I’m just so thankful for the opportunity. That’s as simple as it is.”

• HIGH HOPES: Coming out of a strong collegiate career at Butler University, Dick was regarded as a solid prospect. Voted the Big East Goalkeeper of the Year in 2017, he was the first goalkeeper selected in the 2018 Major League Soccer SuperDraft as the Roeland Park, Kan. returned close to home after being taken with the No. 13 pick by Sporting Kansas City.

• STUCK IN THE MIDDLE: From there, circumstances took over. Dick made 24 appearances for Sporting Kansas City II in the USL Championship, but with club legend Tim Melia ahead of him on the depth chart, chances for First Team action were few and far between. He bounced around on short-term loans – even making one appearance for Tulsa in 2019 – while serving as understudy at SKC. Dick was caught in the space of being beyond reserve team soccer, but not at the level of an MLS Goalkeeper of the Year winner.

• TAKING A NEW PATH: Signing with Minnesota United FC prior to the 2022 season, Dick found himself in the same spot, with Dayne St. Clair starting his path to becoming the 2025 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year and Canada’s No. 1. Between his final appearance for SKC II on October 16, 2019 and his debut for the Hounds on March 8, 2024, he made nine league appearances in the USL Championship and MLS NEXT Pro, a career that had at that point failed to achieve takeoff.

With the Hounds, though, Dick showed why he was so well-regarded.

In his first season in Pittsburgh, he was nothing short of spectacular. Dick claimed both the league’s Golden Glove with a 0.69 goals-against average and took Goalkeeper of the Year honors as he ended the regular season and playoffs with a save percentage of 79.1 percent and Goals Prevented mark of -11.06.

This season, Dick continued to deliver, recording 11 regular season shutouts and a 71.9% save percentage to help the Hounds return to the postseason.

Then, in the playoffs, he was immaculate.

Across 450 minutes – including three games that went to extra time – Dick recorded 15 saves and didn’t concede once. He posted a -2.29 Goals Prevented mark and a +4.02 Goals Added mark to lead all goalkeepers in the postseason. And facing three penalty shootouts in four rounds, each time he delivered, making the key stop against Tulsa with a low stop to his left on Stefan Lukić to close the second round.

“I was lucky that I chose the right way, and [Lukić] went there,” said Dick on Saturday. “If we needed it, I would hope to make another one as well. But our guys, I told them over there, I had full faith in anyone that was stepping up there, because we’ve done it before. We just have a bunch of clutch players on this roster that wanted it, wanted to win this game. At that point, I just knew that if I could save one, we had a good shot.”

Now, with more than 60 appearances under his belt across all competitions for the Hounds, there may be no place the 31-year-old veteran is happier to be, or more grateful for the path that brought him here.

“I'm just so thankful,” he said. “I’m thankful because that journey, I wouldn’t have traded it, because it taught me so much. It’s the path that I was meant to be on. This is a cool, cool part in that path, and I’m going to remember this day for a very long time.”