The Nicholls softball team is currently riding an eight-game win streak heading into their fifth conference series of the season.

The Colonels (24-12, 9-2) will head to Lake Charles this weekend with first place in the conference up for grabs when they take on the Cowgirls of McNeese State University. During the winning streak, Nicholls outscored opponents 42-11, including back-to-back sweeps of Southland Conference opponents the last two weekends.

“I couldn’t be prouder of this team,” Angel Santiago, head coach, said. “Motivation lasts for a little bit, but discipline lasts a long time, that’s what I like about this team.”

The junior and senior laden lineups that Santiago used this season put up impressive numbers in the first part of the SLC schedule. The Colonels currently rank fourth in team batting average and runs scored and fifth in runs batted in. Danielle Phillips leads the team in batting average and is currently ranked fifth in that category in SLC play.

With eight of the nine hitters in this year’s lineup returning from last season, offense was never going to be a problem for the Colonels. In 2015, Nicholls finished with the second highest batting average in the SLC, with the fourth most hits and sixth most runs scored.

However, injuries to Colonel pitching last year hampered their ability to keep teams off the scoreboard. Nicholls had an ace in Hannah Haydel, last week’s SLC Pitcher of the Week and an All-Southland honorable mention a year ago, but missed out on series sweeps and wins due to lack of depth in the pitcher’s circle.

The lack of a dominate second pitcher was a key factor in dropping games that eventually kept the Colonels out of the conference tournament by one spot.

This year, with Jackie Johnson back healthy and the addition of freshman Megan Landry, who already has three shutouts, the Colonels now have depth and talent on both sides of the ball.
Combined, Haydel and Landry are 23-11 on the season with 173 strikeouts in 224 innings of work and a combined 1.66 earned run average. These numbers rank Haydel and Landry first and fourth in SLC pitching, respectfully.

There is one aspect of the game that this experienced team is learning on the fly: how to play as the hunted. Last year, the Colonels played as hunters of sorts, as they were picked near the bottom of the preseason poll but took down teams ranked ahead of them with their offensive efficiency and the right arm of Haydel. This year, they are now the team to beat in the conference.

Santiago says they have no choice but to bring their best effort every pitch, every game because teams are looking to do to them what they were doing to the higher ranked teams last year. He believes the abundance of veterans on this year’s team is vital to the success in the short and long-term.

“The cool thing about what we have in the upper class is they’re all willing to try to get involved in some way in the leadership part,” Santiago said.