The Nicholls baseball team won their second consecutive Southland Conference series this weekend, taking two of three games against the University of Central Arkansas.

The pair of wins puts the Colonels (16-21, 7-11) back above .500 at Raymond E. Didier field this season, with seven more home conference games remaining.

On Friday night the Nicholls offense exploded for five runs in the seventh inning to push their lead to seven, but that would be the crescendo to the nights’ performance. Starting pitcher Justin Sinibaldi, coming on the heels of his first complete game win of the year last weekend, controlled the UCA lineup to the tune of two hits, zero runs and a career-high 11 strikeouts.

A trio of Colonels recorded two hits, most notably Kyle Reese. The senior third baseman made his first start after having surgery to repair a broken jaw and cheekbone when Reese was hit in the face by a pitch in March against Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Kyle Knauth recorded his nineteenth and twentieth RBI of the season, 14 of which have come in SLC play.

Saturday’s contest turned into a slugfest, with the teams combining for twenty-three hits and eleven runs, as Nicholls won their sixth one-run game of the year 6-5, securing the series win. The Colonels took a 4-1 lead into the eighth inning, but as has been a trend in the Colonels losses, the bullpen made things closer at the end.

After allowing an earned run in the first inning, starting pitcher Cole Stapler held the Bears down for seven innings. UCA only collected five hits the rest of the night off of Stapler.

In the eighth, the Bears lead off the inning with two hits. Both runners advanced a base a throwing error by Ethan Valdez, putting runners at second and third with no out. A double down the right field line scored both runners, and sacrifice fly the next better tied the game at four.

The Colonels responded with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning. Justin Holt singled, and Quade Smith doubled to left field that allowed the speedy Holt to score when the UCA left fielder bobbled the ball. Smith advanced to third on a groundout, then scored on a passed ball.

The Bears tacked on a run in the ninth off closer Robbie Petty, but Petty worked around it to earn his second win of the year, as he was the pitcher in the game when the Colonels regained the lead.

The Colonels could not earn their first conference sweep on Sunday, as they dropped the game 7-2. The trend of opponents scoring late in the game against the Colonels continued, as Nicholls lead 2-1 heading into the sixth inning.

Nicholls answered UCA’s run in the fifth inning with two of their own, but the Bear’s scored six runs in the sixth and seventh to propel them to their sixth conference win of the year.

Nicholls did win off the field on Sunday, however, by raising $1,490 for Autism Society Bayou. The Colonels will hit the road to take on top-15 ranked University of Louisiana-Lafayette on Tuesday before traveling to the Cornhusker State for three games with the University of Nebraska this weekend.