Colonels eager to tackle challenging baseball slate

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The Nicholls State University baseball program has momentum heading into 2016 – a program that has posted two-straight 30-win seasons to emerge as a threat in the Southland Conference.


To continue that upward trend this spring, the Colonels will have to navigate through a schedule that will be as tough as the team has seen in years.

Nicholls baseball coach Seth Thibodeaux announced the Colonels 2016 slate this week – a 56-game journey that will feature 29 home games and will pit the Colonels against several programs with both regional and national flare.

The Colonels will face three SEC teams (LSU, Alabama and Mississippi State), Big 10 club Nebraska and local powers UL-Lafayette and Tulane in a non-conference slate that is arguably the team’s most difficult under Thibodeaux.


Those tilts, Thibodeaux said, will groom the Colonels for the Southland opener on March 4 – a three-game home series with Abilene Christian. The Colonels will also host conference games against Sam Houston State, Southeastern Louisiana University, Central Arkansas, McNeese State, Northwestern State and UNO.

“We are excited about the challenges our schedule presents,” Thibodeaux said. “The non-conference schedule will make us better. Our conference will be as strong as ever, and our goal is to be the best we can be – no matter the opponent.”

The Colonels will have to be consistent to shake a brutally tough opening stretch of the season.


Nicholls opens 2016 on Feb. 19 at home for a three-day, four-game weekend series with Mississippi Valley State at Didier Field. The doubleheader will take place on the Saturday with single games to be played on the weekend’s Friday and Sunday.

The Delta Devils were a mess in 2015, recording just a 7-36 record in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

But they’re just a lone softer spot on a schedule that stiffens significantly after opening weekend.


After tangling with Mississippi Valley State, the Colonels hit the road for a mid-week tilt with Alabama on Feb. 24. After tangling with the Crimson Tide, Nicholls will play another three-day, four-game weekend in Starkville, Mississippi.

In that weekend, the Colonels will play two games with UMass-Lowell and two with Mississippi State – an SEC club that is just a few years removed from being among the best teams in the country.

After the weekend in Starkville, the Colonels will return home, but the challenge will have just begun. On March 2, Nicholls will host LSU – a club that is expected to be in the preseason top 5 in 2016. The Colonels beat LSU last year in Alex Box Stadium, which likely means that Nicholls will see the Tigers’ best shot in the 2016 rematch.


LSU coach Paul Mainieri said it’s good for the Tigers to play road games against in-state foes, adding that those are games he looks forward to every year. LSU faces Tulane on the road practically every season, while also rotating away games with the other programs in the state.

“It’s good for the fans, and I think it’s good for the clubs, as well,” Mainieri said during LSU’s last trip to Thibodaux in 2011. “Certainly the LSU brand attracts attention, so it’s good for our team to get experience playing away from home, but also it’s great to get attention for the other great programs in Louisiana, as well.”

Nicholls starts Southland play just two days after the LSU game – a home series with Abilene Christian from March 4-6.


The Colonels also have two bye weekends from league play this year, which the team will use to face Sacred Heart and Nebraska.

Nicholls will host three games with Sacred Heart from March 10-12 before traveling out to the Midwest from April 22-24 for a weekend date with the Cornhuskers – a team that finished 34-23 one year ago.

That’s the same exact amount of wins the Colonels had in 2015 – one of the better seasons the team has had in recent years.


But the past offseason saw a lot of talent leave Thibodaux, and three Nicholls players (Grant Borne, Stuart Holmes and Ryan Deems) were taken in the 2015 MLB Draft. Anotiher, Christian Correa, signed with the Houston Astros once the selections were done.

But Thibodeaux has said time and time again that the Colonels want to build a program that has sustained success – the type of team that is an annual contender for both the Southland Title and NCAA Regional at-large consideration.

For 2016 to be that type of season, the Colonels will have to push past a tough list of challengers. But Thibodeaux has always said that his goal is to have the Colonels ready to compete – no matter the opposition in the other dugout.


“We want to be a hard-working, scrappy ball club that finds ways to get wins,” Thibodeaux said last season. “That’s what will get us to where we want to go. That’s the personality we’d like to be.”

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