After finishing an all-conference stretch of four games in seven days, the Colonels volleyball team won two and lost two, placing the Colonels fourth in its division. The stretch started with an upset win over conference rival Stephen F. Austin on Oct. 9 in five sets (25-18, 25-16, 22-25, 19-25 and 15-10 respectively).
The victory gave the Colonels its fourth win out of 36 tries against the Ladyjacks. The Colonels returned to the .500 mark in conference play and extended its winning streak to three matches, its longest of the season. This was also head coach Chris Laird’s first win against the Ladyjacks in his five-year tenure at Nicholls.
“What a great win for our girls and our program tonight. Stephen F. Austin is a great program. They’re always very talented and very well coached,” Laird said. “I feel our girls earned it. It wasn’t just given to us; we earned that win. We came out strong in the first two sets and kept them off balance. In the next two sets, we knew SFA was tough and weren’t going to back down. Hats off to our girls because they did a phenomenal job of building momentum, staying in the match and coming out with the win in the fifth.”
Trying to keep the momentum of a three-game winning streak alive, the Colonels faced off against the Cowgirls of McNeese the next day. McNeese entered the match second in the conference in overall wins, but it was the Colonels who shut out the Cowgirls in three sets, 3-0 (25-20, 25-20 and 25-12 respectively). Extending its winning streak to a season-best four matches, the Colonels tied its third longest win streak in the program’s Division I history. Meanwhile, the longest home stand of the season ended in a sweep for the Colonels, boosting them in the Southland Conference East with a 3-2 record.
“What a weekend for Nicholls volleyball,” Laird said. “Our returners did a great job, and the freshmen really stepped up. Anytime you beat two quality teams like that, it proves you are doing the right things. Danielle Daigle did a great job with her passing; Amy Whitehead deserves a lot of credit for the set decisions she made; and Manieka Golden did a good job getting the ball down.”
With four wins in a row, the stretch represents Nicholls’ longest win streak since 2002 when they won five consecutive matches. However, as the Colonels traveled to Beaumont, Texas on Oct. 14 for a mid-week conference game against the Lamar Cardinals, a hard five-set loss of 3-2 (18-25, 25-22, 25-18, 25-22 and 15-10 respectively), halted the Colonels from surpassing its 2008 win total by having its first 10-win season since 2004.
“We lost to a very good team tonight,” Laird said. “We played very well at times, but there’s a reason they are third in the conference. We kept it close and had chances to win, but we just didn’t sustain that long enough. The girls did a great job of trying to fix the strategy as much as possible, but we got off the game plan a little. Our service errors killed us tonight, but we have to get over this and get ready for Sam Houston State on Friday.”
After the loss, the Colonels returned home for a match against the top team in the Southland Conference West Division, Sam Houston State. The Sam Houston Bearkats shut Nicholls out while extending its winning streak to seven matches as the Colonels lost its second straight, keeping them on the brink of last year’s record.
After that four-game stretch, the Colonels volleyball team has a 9-12 record while 3-4 in the Southland Conference East, putting them right at fourth place with nine games left before the 2009 SLC tournament.
First serve for the Colonels’ next game will be played in San Marcos, Texas against Texas State at 6:30 p.m. tonight followed by another in Arlington, Texas Saturday against Texas-Arlington before heading back to Thibodaux on Oct. 30, both of which are conference games.
