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To the outsider looking in, the Nicholls State baseball team is in a mad scramble to reach the Southland Conference Tournament.
But for those within the Colonels’ clubhouse, postseason play has already begun.
With just one weekend left in the regular season, Nicholls is treating every game like it may be its last as the team hopes to punch its ticket to Katy for the conference tournament.
“We are in postseason play. This is the playoffs,” Nicholls State baseball coach Seth Thibodeaux said. “It’s time for us to grip down and bare down and it’s time to get some things done. But it is good to have an opportunity to play high-stakes games late in the season.”
“We’ve got to dig deep right now,” Colonels senior pitcher Patrick Shreve added. “This is playoff baseball right now. … That’s what we’ve been running with. The conference tournament for us has already started and our mindset has already changed.”
Coming into this season, Nicholls had hoped the final weekend of the season wouldn’t hold so much significance.
The Colonels finished as a Southland Conference semifinalist in 2011 and returned their entire weekend rotation from that team, as well as marquee sluggers like Jeremy Hill and Blake Bergeron.
But Nicholls couldn’t build on to last season’s success because of a variety of factors.
The first is injuries – the Colonels are beat up throughout their entire roster.
“We’ve never been able to keep up with the rate to which we’ve lost guys,” Thibodeaux said. “That’s part of why you’ve seen us be inconsistent.”
Among the Colonels walking wounded this season are junior infielder Leo Vargas, junior outfielder Matt Richard and junior outfielder Mike Barba.
Richard’s loss has particularly stung the Nicholls offense, because when healthy, the Gonzales native is a force on the bases. He has 20 stolen bases on the season, but most have come in the early weeks before he herniated a disk in his back.
“We have to sit him once or twice a week,” Thibodeaux said. “He’s big to our team. That’s our leadoff hitter. He’s like third in the Southland Conference in stolen bases. But you know what? He stole 17 or 18 of those bases in the first month of the season. He hasn’t really been able to do that since. You’ve seen our numbers go down there, as a result.”
Nicholls has also been depleted at the catcher position where both starter Evan Weibel and backup Chase Garrett have fallen to injury.
Weibel is likely out for the season. Garrett is just returning to the lineup in limited duty.
The team’s catcher situation mirrors that of other spots in the lineup, which has forced Thibodeaux to count on younger players, while also asking guys to play their secondary positions.
“We’ve never gotten to the point this year where we could be consistent with our guys in the lineup,” Thibodeaux said. “It’s always been one injury after another. But I’m very proud of our guys who have stepped up. … We’ll piece it together, but I’m proud of the guys who have made it work in the meantime to keep us in contention.
“The injuries, that’s all just an excuse. What we can do is control how we hit it, how we pitch it and how we play defense. If we do those things, the injuries won’t seem nearly as daunting.”
Aside from bumps and bruises, Nicholls has struggled to have a “killer instinct” this season.
The Colonels are just 3-8 in Southland games decided by two runs or fewer.
In a lot of those games, Nicholls had early leads, but squandered scoring opportunities, which allowed their opponent to rally and take control of the game.
“We need that killer instinct,” Shreve said. “When we get down, it’s like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get back ahead.’ Other than that, we’re playing great defense and we’re doing all of the little things. Just when that seventh, eighth and ninth innings come around, we’ve got to put teams away.”
But what benefits the Colonels is experience – they’ve been here before.
Last season, the Colonels needed a weekend sweep in the final week of the season to advance to the Southland Conference Tournament.
Having that edge gives the Colonels confidence that they can finish the season strong.
“Last year, knowing that we did it is big, because we know, ‘Hey, this is possible,’” Shreve said. “Nothing is impossible for us right now. Anything can happen and we still control our own destiny. That’s exactly what it is for us right now – we can do this.”
Thibodeaux agreed, but added he looks forward to the day when Nicholls being in the top eight in the league is a formality – a time he believes is coming soon in the future of the program.
“We’ve been there before – we’ve done it,” Thibodeaux said. “That’s exciting. When you’ve been somewhere and you’ve done something, then you expect to be there. That’s why I’m so excited to just try to get into the tournament, because we’ve been there and had success there and we know what we need to do to win the son of a gun.
“But what we need to overcome at Nicholls is that stigma of competing to make the tournament. That’s something that’s a really big goal of mine. I want to win the league. I want to flirt with the idea of making a Regional without winning the conference tournament. I want to compete for 30 to 40 wins a season. That’s where we’ve got to get better and what we’ve got to grow towards.”
Nicholls State pitcher Patrick Shreve fires a pitch during a game this season.
