Colonels baseball moving forward under Thibodeaux

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The best college baseball game that I’ve seen this year took place just down the road on the campus of Nicholls State University.


The Colonels took on UL-Lafayette last Wednesday for a traditional mid-week tilt between the two in-state foes. On paper, Nicholls looked like an obvious underdog in the game, as the Cajuns headed to Thibodaux as an unquestioned Top 10 team in the country.

UL-Lafayette left Didier Field unscathed and escaped with a narrow victory. But to do so, they needed to play 11 innings of baseball and take the best punch that Nicholls had. The Colonels had the winning run on base several times in the final frames of the game. Had the ball bounced differently at any time in the final 45 minutes of action, Nicholls would have waked away with the win.

Close, but no cigar for Nicholls, and both teams moved from the game and headed into their weekends with eyes on bigger games in conference play.


But the Wednesday game was probably a more significant result for Nicholls than it was for UL, as the Colonels’ close loss shows coach Seth Thibodeaux that his goal to lead Nicholls to the top is headed in the right direction.

At Nicholls, obvious budgetary challenges exist that limit the Colonels’ ability to have competitive facilities and other luxuries that programs around the Southeast enjoy.

That, in turn, limits Nicholls’ advantages in recruiting, because the grass often seems greener on the other side of the fence when recruits visit the university and compare the school to other places around the South.


But Thibodeaux has never shied away from the challenge, and has said from his first days on Nicholls’ campus that he expects to win.

And by win, he means win big.

Since taking Nicholls’ job in 2011, Thibodeaux has never been nervous about publicly placing expectations onto the program. In a 2012 interview with the Tri-Parish Times, Thibodeaux was asked about LSU and what enables them to be consistently successful.


The coach answered the question in coachspeak, talking about LSU’s consistency and coaching. He then said that he believes Nicholls could be on that level someday.

“That’s the program that we’re trying to be here,” Thibodeaux said. “We want to be that club that consistently wins 40, 45 games in a season. We want to be that team that doesn’t necessarily have to win the Southland Conference Tournament to get to the NCAA Tournament, because we did enough in the regular season to establish ourselves as an NCAA Tournament team. And if we ever get into a Regional or a Super Regional, I want us to be that gutsy, gritty club that fights like heck and is the toughest team in the tournament – the team that everyone regrets having to play.”

Quotes like this are commonplace in any interview with Thibodeaux, who is always touting his team’s ability to challenge and win against the best programs in the country.


Maybe it’s youth. At 33, Thibodeaux is one of the youngest head coaches in NCAA Division I baseball. Maybe it’s charisma shining through. The Colonels’ coach is a genuinely likeable guy who is always welcoming to media and seems like (from an outsider who has never been in the locker room) a player’s coach. Or maybe it’s because Thibodeaux just genuinely believes in himself, his staff and his players, thinking that they, together, have what it takes to build things up.

It hasn’t happened yet for the Colonels, and in Thibodeaux’s now three-and-a-half season tenure with Nicholls, the Colonels have hovered around .500 and have been a middle of the pack team in Southland Conference play.

But the ambition still burns bright within Thibodeaux and the Colonels show flashes that they are pretty close to turning it around.


Nicholls opened Southland Conference play in style, winning two of their opening three games against Houston Baptist – a team that looks like it will be among the best in the Southland.

They carried that momentum into last week’s game against UL-Lafayette – a brilliant baseball game that was played by a pair of teams hungry to earn a win. The Cajuns are a legitimate threat to win the National Championship in 2014.

But if one didn’t know any different, they would have said the same thing about the Colonels on Wednesday night, who pushed the Cajuns to the end, and arguably outplayed their foe for the first nine innings of the game.


They carried that momentum into this past weekend and swept Lamar to move to 5-1 in the Southland – alone atop the standings.

Just a week before challenging the Cajuns and beating Lamar, Nicholls traveled to Alex Box Stadium and pushed LSU to the limit, losing 5-3 and allow the Tigers to record just five hits. Had the Colonels played a little better defense in that game, they may have left Baton Rouge with a win.

But that’s no surprise to Thibodeaux and his staff – they expect to do great things and to win big games.


Whether the Colonels ever get to that level where they’re annually in the NCAA Tournament is yet to be seen.

But Thibodeaux has a lot of fire and passion for the work that he does.

Mark me down as someone not willing to write him off and bet against his vision.


Because I saw that vision on full display last week against UL-Lafayette, and it was good enough to take the No. 5 team in America to extra innings in a tough, hard-fought game.

That’s a heck of a sign that things are going forward and moving in the right direction.