The Nicholls State University baseball team finished the Camel Inn Showdown in Thibodaux last week with two wins against Western Illinois University and University of Louisiana-Monroe, and a loss against Southern Illinois University.
Overall, the Colonels have gone 3-4 through their first seven games of the season but are 3-1 after dropping all three games to the University of Houston in their first series of the season. In the three wins, Nicholls only allowed one run and struck out 37 batters across the games. Senior pitcher Tyler Byrd, a native of Petal, Miss., accounted for 11 of those strikeouts in his win against Louisiana-Monroe. However, Southern Illinois scored eight runs against the Colonels, the most they have allowed in a single game so far this season.
“Our pitching staff has done a phenomenal job this entire season and the one time we needed our offense – Listen, the game is going to even itself out. At some point, your offense has got to lift you, and that was our opportunity tonight. We didn’t quite get it done, but we competed,” Head Coach Seth Thibodaux said. “And with our pitching staff, we have a bunch of guys who know their roles. Their pitching coaches have done a phenomenal job. Coach Protho has them understanding their roles and what’s expected of them. When you know what to do to be successful, it’s a lot easier.”
The Colonels and SIU went 11 innings before the Salukis scored the game winning run in the top of the 11th inning. Thibodaux believes that the experience of that loss will humble the team and can use it as a learning experience.
“We jumped out to a big lead and kind of got comfortable a little bit, and they came in and popped us. We’re just going to take it from here, as mature as we can, and make sure when we’re in that moment. We’ve got to win that game, and our players understand that,” Thibodaux said.
Senior outfielder Keith Cormier, a native of Channelview, Texas, echoed Thibodaux’s take from the game.
“I think we competed well. They competed well. It was a great game. That’s baseball at its best. I feel like everybody fought real hard. We hit the ball well, pitched well at points. Close ball games are so important to a team,” Cormier said. “You’re going to get a lot of experience with things like that. Extra innings, you don’t get to do that all the time. I think as a club we can take a lot of experience from that.”
In addition to winning three of their last four games, the Colonels have played all of those games in Thibodaux.
“We’re a good baseball team. We went to Houston, and we played a really good baseball team, and things didn’t go our way exactly the way we wanted them to, but it was expected for us to come home and defend our turf,” Cormier said.
Thibodaux believes that the team is not playing to the level expected of them yet, but thinks that the team’s senior class will be the catalyst to push the team through the rest of the season.
“We’re nowhere near where we want to be. One, we have some extremely talented players but two, we have some really good leaders. We’ve got a group of seniors who work extremely hard, and they set a standard here for the way things are going to be done,” Thibodaux said. “I would say that I think they’ve been well-coached. Our coaching staff has done a phenomenal job with them, but I really, really think the key is that this senior class has totally bought in, and they’re very hungry for success.”