After opening up conference play last weekend with a series win over Houston Baptist University, Nicholls baseball hopes to maintain its current momentum.
The Colonels took the first two games of that series, but fell in the second game of a double header on Saturday. Baseball has preached the motto “finish,” but they were not able to in a game that was locked at a stalemate and took 15 innings to complete. The total run time on the game was four hours and 18 minutes.
Head coach Seth Thibodeaux is in his fourth season as the Colonel’s skipper. Thibodeaux is one of the most successful coaches in Nicholls’ baseball history. He has won at least 25 games in each of his first three years and has an overall record of 90-96. As of now, the Colonels are 10-10 on the year.
Florida native and senior infielder Leo Vargas said, “We want to finish strong. We were not able to get a sweep, but we did get the series so it isn’t something to get too down about.”
Thibodeaux is confident the team can put together a series of wins and get to the level of play they expect.
“We have improved in every way, shape and form, just from our toughness and being a lot more coachable,” Thibodeaux said. “Our strength and condition has improved. Our ability is better.”
The area the team lacked in earlier in the season was chemistry. The team has eight seniors on the roster, so Thibodeaux did not expect the chemistry to be an issue, but he believes they are beginning to find their stride.
“I thought it would happen in the first 10 games, but it has taken 20 games. There are no disappointments,” Thibodeaux said. “I just want us to stop beating ourselves up in certain moments. There are certain things that people don’t see: certain at bats, certain pitches, certain innings.”
Over the past several seasons, the Colonels have struggled in one-run ball games and hope to find ways to win those close games. The team feels if they want to win a championship, they will need to win those close ball games. Thibodeaux believes doing the little things can help elevate them. One of the thing he mentioned was not having “lazy at-bats,” which he classified as lazy fly balls and also failing to work the pitch counts.
The team wants to be able to execute their offense and put pressure on opposing pitchers. He wants to be aggressive on the base paths. In order to do that, Thibodeaux does not want to see guys swinging at the first pitch when they have fast runners on base.
The team feels they need to do a better job adjusting to games. Thibodeaux emphasized figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the team.
“We need to rely on strength when in doubt. I am not talking about being mediocre,” Thibodeaux said. “I don’t want to be .500. I want to have 30 win seasons and conference championships. We need to make sure we are consistent in all three phases. We usually are good two out of three, but I want to be good in three out of three.”
Senior infielder Tyler Duplantis reiterated this concept.
“One day the pitching may be there and the hitters aren’t. One day the hitting may be there and the pitchers aren’t. We have to realize that is what the day calls for.”