In their second weekend of conference play, Nicholls baseball swept the University of Lamar Cardinals on the road, including a double-header on March 22.
The Colonels are feeling confident with a 5-1 record in the Southland Conference.
“We are almost clicking in all three phases, we are not quite there yet and that is OK,” Head Coach Seth Thibodeaux said. “That is coming, but we are still good enough to win games and not be at our best, which is really good.”
 The first game of the series ended 4-0 in shutout fashion after a strong performance from Southpaw Taylor Byrd. He completed 6 innings of work, giving up six hits and fanning three.
Byrd has been the Colonels’ ace this year on the mound. In six starts, Byrd has a 4-1 record with a 0.91 earned run average and he has 42 strikeouts. Byrd is off to a hot start this year and he said that comes from his command on the mound.
“I am throwing more strikes and not trying to blow it by people and it is working so far. By getting ahead, the strikeouts will come,” Byrd said.
Thibodeaux believes Byrd’s performance helped set the tone for the weekend, saying he has been “Mr. Consistency.”
“His last two starts were not his best or anywhere near as good as he can be,” Thibodeaux said. “He still went deep in both games and gave up nothing. They had no runs to show for it.”
The Colonels had to claw their way back into first game of the double header. They were down three runs heading into the eighth inning, but managed three runs to tie it up. They followed it up with two more runs in the ninth to take the lead. Team captain and senior righty Marc Picciola was on the mound in the ninth earning the win.
“Our left-handed hitters were big for us. David Zorn, Charles Morton, Marc Frazier were critical for us this weekend,” Thibodeaux said. “But it is hard to pinpoint one guy right now because it has been team efforts and team wins.”
Senior righty Brandon Jackson threw seven innings in the second game of the double-header on Saturday. Jackson allowed nine hits, but Lamar only managed to cross home once throughout his start. His start allowed the Colonels to pull away from the Cardinals as they scored eight runs led by the bats of senior outfielder Keith Cormier and redshirt sophomore infielder Marc Frazier.
Cormier went 1-3 at the plate scoring two runs and tallying one RBI. Frazier belted one over the right field wall in the first inning putting the Colonels up 3-0 early.
Heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Colonels had an 8-1 lead. Stuart Holmes and Jason McDonald were called to close it out, but struggled, giving up a combined five runs. Picciola closed it out, earning his fourth save of the season.
“To have someone with his mindset, instinct and presence, because they know when he comes in that this sucker is over,” Thibodeaux said. “You can feel it in the dugout. You can feel it on the field and you can feel it when he is around.”
Lazy at-bats were an area Thibodeaux felt they needed to improve upon. The team worked on eliminating lazy fly balls. He said they improved and it was “not even close.”
“We had explosive at-bats,” Thibodeaux said. “We fought pitches off and cut our strikeouts down to little or none. We had some big blows, had some doubles, instinct hits as I like to call them.”
While Thibodeaux said he was happy with the at-bats they had this weekend, there is still room for improvement.
“We are almost clicking in all three phases, we are not quite there yet and that is OK,” Thibodeaux emphasized. “That is coming, but we are still good enough to win games and not be at our best, which is really good.”
The Colonels battle Oral Roberts for the third conference series this weekend. The first game of the three-game series takes place Friday at 6:00 p.m. at Didier Field.