Lady Colonels to face worthy opponents

Success offers great rewards. At least, the Nicholls State softball team would like to hope so.

The Lady Colonels reached the conference championship game last year, but fell to Stephen F. Austin 2-1.

Seventh-year head coach Jenny Parsons is hoping the Lady Colonels’ 2009 softball schedule, which includes a certain school from Baton Rouge making the trek to Thibodaux, brings better luck.

Parsons attributed last season’s success to playing tougher opponents. She hopes to repeat that trend this season.

“Conference will be very competitive again,” she said. “We will have a good grouping of upperclassmen and young players to have a good opportunity to be in the mix again for postseason.”

The Lady Colonels open their season with 15 straight games on the road. Included in that are tournaments on the campuses of Centenary, Louisiana-Lafayette and Southern Mississippi. The Lady Colonels will play Bryant University, Missouri State, Boston College, Louisiana Tech, Alabama State, Southern Mississippi and South Alabama in those tournaments.

South Alabama and Southern round out the road stand in between the tournaments.

The Colonels finally play a home series against Southland Conference foe Southeastern on Feb. 24. That is followed by another home series against conference opponent Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

In addition to the usual conference slate featuring the likes of Texas State, McNeese State, Northwestern State and Sam Houston State, the Colonels also face Southern (March 31), Centenary (April 1) and LSU (April 7) at home this season.

The LSU Tigers return to Thibodaux April 22 to face the Colonels.