The Nicholls State University baseball team lost two out of three games over the weekend to Southland Conference rival Southeastern Louisiana University.

The Colonels, who are currently 13-12-1 overall and 5-7 in the Southland Conference, ran into a Lions squad that was riding a five-game winning streak heading into the matchup Friday night in Hammond.
After sophomore centerfielder Justin Holt lead off the game with a triple, junior third baseman Kyle Reese scored Holt on a sacrifice fly to centerfield. The Colonels only managed two more hits over the next eight innings, dropping the game 3-1.

“We should have beat them Friday night but we didn’t,” Head Coach Seth Thibodeaux said. “We let that loss carry into Saturday and didn’t play up to our standards.

Despite almost matching SLU in hits on Saturday, the Lions took advantage of two Colonel errors in the third inning to take a 3-1 advantage. Southeastern scored in the fifth, seventh and eight innings and stifled a Colonel rally in the ninth to take the game 7-3.

Sunday’s game saw a stellar performance by junior pitcher Justin Sinibaldi. The right-hander tossed a complete game shutout against the Southland Conference top offensive club, allowing five hits and striking out six batters in route to a 4-0 win.

The performance earned Sinibaldi Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week honors for the second time this season, as well as being named the Louisiana Sports Writer’s Association Pitcher of the Week.

As in the first game, Holt and Reese combined for another Colonel first inning run. After Holt singled to center, he stole second base to put himself in scoring position. Reese singled to right, scoring Holt. Holt and Reese lead the Colonels in hitting, collecting three and four hits respectively.
The Colonels are facing the difficulties that come with returning only one full time starter from last year’s squad. At this point last season, the team was in first place after their first four conference series.

“We had the bottom half of the league to start off last season,” Thibodeaux said. “This year, we had ran into a couple of hot teams early and had a few road trips to begin this season.”

This season, the Colonels have knocked off nationally ranked Louisiana State University and regional powerhouse University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but have yet to win a conference series. However, Thibodeaux remains confident his young team has not yet fully matured.

“This team is no where near how good they will be at the end of the season,” Thibodeaux said. “We’re good enough to beat anyone in the country, but we’re vulnerable to loss to anybody because we are still learning ourselves.”

With six more conference series ahead of the Colonels, the time to come together as a team is at hand for Thibodeaux and the squad.

“We’ve gone through our lull in the season and we’ve weathered the storm quite nicely,” Thibodeaux added. “We’re 5-7 but you’re about to see us turn the corner as a team.”

The Colonels return to Southland Conference play this weekend, taking on the University of the Incarnate Word for three games at Ray E. Didier Field.