The Nicholls State University baseball team heads into the 2015 season looking to improve on their second-place Southland Conference finish in 2014.

Last year, the Colonels finished the season 32-26 with a 21-9 mark in conference play. The second place finish exceeded preseason predictions as Nicholls was predicted to finish eighth and ninth in the conference by Southland coaches and sports information directors, respectively. This season, the Colonels are predicted to finish fifth by the league’s coaches and seventh by the SIDs, but head coach Seth Thibodeaux isn’t paying any mind to preseason polls.

“It’s easy to be motivated when you finish second. Our team does a good job of not even looking at predictions or anything like that because ultimately, the people who make those calls aren’t at practice with you. They aren’t on the road recruiting with you, so they don’t know the inside track to your team,” Thibodeaux said. “Personally, because our players and I are competitive, there is a little sting. In our program we call that peripherals and we do everything we can to eliminate peripherals. We have to stay focused. We have binoculars and we’re looking straight ahead. We have to control what we can control, and that’s getting better every day.”

Thibodeaux said that the team does not take much stock in preseason polls because they are never right in predicting the final order of the conference, like the Colonels unexpected second-place finish in 2014.

“The funny thing about that is that it’s never right.When you finish first, it’s usually someone that wasn’t predicted to. I enjoy that, but it honestly doesn’t faze our club.
Everyone picked us second-to-last or eleventh or something silly like, that and our players just kinda laughed it off because they knew we would be competing for a conference championship. They know what they have and our players are better this year. Our players are talking about regionals, super regionals and Omaha. For an SID to pick us seventh, small potatoes,” Thibodeaux said.

The team returns several key players in redshirt senior first baseman David Zorn, senior catcher Christian Correa and pitchers junior Grant Borne and senior Ryan Deemes. In 2014, the Colonels were among the country’s best defensive clubs, as they led the Southland Conference in earned runs allowed and the country in double plays turned. Thibodeaux said the team intends to continue a commitment to limiting the opponents’ run scoring opportunities.

“That’s the motto of our program. We’re going to pitch and we’re going to play defense. That’s how we recruit and that’s how we design our team. I think that we will be able to do a little more offensively this year. We’re swinging the bats a little better, but ultimately we want to focus on our defense. I don’t know if our numbers are going to be as good, but our pitching staff is better than it was last year,” Thibodeaux said.

Nicholls opens the season in Thibodaux against Stony Brook University, who two seasons ago were the Cinderella story of the College Baseball World Series, as they defeated then-No. 1 Louisiana State University to advance to Omaha. Despite the tough opposition, Thibodeaux said it is important for the Colonels to repeat their home form of 2014 when they won 20 of 30 games at Ray E. Didier Field.

“It’s important for us to always do that. We have to win our games at home and we have to take care of business on the road. We talk about it with our players all the time. We have some nice home games this year. We have Stony Brook, and they were in Omaha a few years ago, a Pac-12 team in Utah, UL-Lafayette, Tulane, South Alabama, UL-Monroe and Southeastern. It’s a neat home schedule and we enjoy it,” Thibodeaux said.

However, Thibodeaux reminded fans that baseball seasons are long and results at the beginning of the season do not have a lasting effect.

“A fifty-five game schedule is a long time. It can’t be treated like football schedules. Everyone treats it that way because everyone anticipates that first one, but win or lose, it has no effect on your team the whole year. It’s just getting started and the next thing you know, we’re three weeks into the season and you don’t even remember what happened in the first game,” Thibodeaux said. “That’s why it’s important to have a mature team that stays focused every single day and doesn’t look at those things.”

Thibodeaux’s goals for the program have remained the same since he took over as the Colonels’ coach four and a half years ago, but he is challenging the team’s seniors to build on what the 2014 Nicholls baseball team was able to accomplish and leave their own mark on the program’s history.

“Our goal has always been to compete for a conference championship. Our saying around the program is ‘Go from good to great and let’s take it to the next level.’ Last year’s team did some great things. They will always be remembered for having a dominant pitching staff, being No. 1 in the league in pitching, leading the country in turning double plays and leaving their mark. Last year’s team set a school record for most wins in the Southland Conference, but that was last year’s team. My challenge to the seniors this year: what are you going to be remembered for? Do you want to just do the same? Are you comfortable with last year? Or do you want to be remembered for something great? We want to go to Omaha, we want to go to the super regionals, we want to win a conference championship, but we want to be the best team that we can be every single day. If we do that, then we’ll exceed every goal that we have for our program,” Thibodeaux said.