THIBODAUX, La. – Needing a win to strengthen its first-place standing in the Southland Conference, the Nicholls State University baseball team received strong performances from several seniors playing at Didier Field for the final time as the Colonels earned a 9-6 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sunday afternoon, clinching the series win over the Islanders.
Nicholls remained atop the SLC at 14-7 in conference play with the win, improving to 29-20 overall. The Colonels will head into the final weekend of the regular season with a 2.0 game over Northwestern State and UIW. The final opponent, New Orleans, can also tie Nicholls as they are 11-10 in league play, as is A&M-Corpus Christi (23-27, 11-10 SLC).
In the series finale, the Islanders jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the opening inning to force Nicholls to go to the bullpen before recording an out. The big blow came off the bat of Max Puls, who homered for the third time in the series, sending a 3-run shot out of the park off of senior Tyler Theriot. But after another run scored, classmate Chase Gearing got out of the inning and went on to throw five-plus innings of relief.
Nicholls nearly answered right away by loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the first, but Evans Hendricks escaped without allowing a run. The Colonels loaded the bases with none down in the second and third innings as well, but this time the Colonels capitalized.
In the second, a groundout by Parker Coddou and a sacrifice fly by senior Xane Washington cut the deficit in half. Edgar Alvarez followed with an RBI double before Gerardo Villarreal laced a base hit up the middle to make it 4-4. A costly error in the inning resulted in all four runs being unearned.
For the third, Washington highlighted another four-run inning with a 2-run double. Alvarez and Villarreal each drove in a run again to double the Colonel lead at 8-4.
Two errors by the Colonels made way for a pair of Islander runs in the fifth. But the senior trio of Gearing, Josh Mancuso and Cade Evans would shut out the Islanders the rest of the way. Freshman Kaden Amundson gave Nicholls an insurance in the eighth on an RBI single.
Gearing earned the victory, striking out three in 5.1 innings. Mancuso retired Puls before allowing a single, then Evans went the distance to pick up his sixth save of the season. He struck out two and allowed just a lone single in 3.1 shutout innings.
On offense, Nicholls reached double figures in hits for the third time in the series, racking up 13 in the victory. Washington led the team with three RBIs while Coddou, Garrett Felix and Kade Turnage each had two hits.
The Islanders finished with 12 hits with the top-half of the order accounting for 10. Tre Jones and Chance Reisdorph each drove in a run.
ON DECK
Nicholls will head to the Lakefront for a three-game series against New Orleans in the teams’ season finale. Thursday’s opener is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
{Courtesy: Nicholls Athletics}