Expectations high for Nicholls softball team after breakout season in 2023

When a team starts five or six freshmen and a pair of sophomores every game, the expectations can be pretty low.

That was the case for last season’s Nicholls softball team which was picked to finish last in the Southland Conference preseason poll.

Bringing in 17 new players, including 14 freshmen to a team that had been 12-38 under its first-year coach, the doubters were in large supply. But going into his second season, Nicholls coach Justin Lewis wasn’t buying it.

“We knew from the get-go that we weren’t last. We brought in 17 new players. We knew the talent that we had and nobody else really did,” said Lewis. “People don’t pay attention in those preseason polls. They usually just go back based on the previous years and we finished last.

“So that’s the way they did it. It helped us fly under the radar for a little while, but we knew that the 13 freshmen we brought in were really talented. Then the four transfers we brought in obviously helped out, one of those being Audrey McNeill, one of our two frontline pitchers. The other one was Molly Yoo, a freshman pitcher.”

Even Lewis admitted he didn’t know what to expect trying to bring together so many disparate parts, but by the time infield dust (now turf, actually) settled, Nicholls managed to finish 27-22 overall, including 13-11 in the Southland.

Following that first season, Lewis said he realized two things: the team needed better players, and a cultural realignment.

“When we got here, after the first year, we knew we had to bring in more talent,” the Nicholls coach said. “After that, everything’s our environment and we just go all-in on our environment. These kids, they’re humans, and they’re young humans. So if they’re not ecstatic with their environment, they mentally just shut down and quit like most humans do. We focus on our environment. We train on it and it kind of takes care of itself.”

After the quick turnaround season of 2023, Nicholls has been picked to finish third in the conference preseason poll for this season.

“We’re here in Year Three and last year’s environment was really good. But now Year Three, it’s like boy, it’s really, really good, and we have a really special kind of chemistry building, but it’s taken three years to build this message, train on it, get the right people here, and not only just the kids, but the coaches and then the kids’ families too are really important, too. We have high standards, and we have expectations of everyone for their role, including the parents, for our environment, and we tell them from the get-go that the only rule to really remain part of this is to be very healthy for our environment,” said Lewis.

The turnaround was eye-opening for some, said Lewis, but it wasn’t easy.

“We rode the waves of youth and early we were very hit or miss, but they had to learn,” the coach said. “Just because you’re talented doesn’t mean that you get to skip steps on the ladder of learning how to win. We went through those, but they stuck together, and they just kept working and its perfect kind of hockey-stick growth of what you want to see as a coach of getting better every day and at the end of the year, we were kind of playing our best ball, which is what you hope for.”

Following that success comes a concern of a different sort, such as complacency.

“I felt like at times in the fall they didn’t have the focused, intentional work that we did the year before. We just assumed we’re going to be good,” said Lewis. “Those are lessons that young people need to learn. Unfortunately, we’re probably learning the hard way as the beginning of the season starts going. Those were our big lessons and definitely our fears going into it.

“You could feel it, like ‘ladies, we’re still not that good.’ We’re good because we worked, and we worked intentionally. So the fall, we had our ups and downs with that, and I think they came back with a renewed sense of focus coming back from the Christmas break.”

Among the many returning players for the Lady Colonels is one of the veterans in Alexa Krause. As a junior a year ago, she ranked fifth in the SLC in batting average at .342 and fourth in runs batted in with 40. She also hit five home runs on her way to All-Conference honors as an outfielder.

“This year she’s going to play mostly first base,” Lewis noted. “She came to us as a first baseman, but we had a whole line of first basemen when we got here, and she was the most athletic one to be able to play in the outfield.

“She’s actually turned herself into a really good outfielder. Last year we were thin in the outfield, now we’re deep in the outfield and so I needed her to play first base. So she’s actually gonna play first. She probably will still play some left when we’re mixing lineups around.”

Also returning for Nicholls is Erin Poche, one of the many impactful freshmen from a year ago. In 2023, she finished fourth in the league in hitting with a .363 average with 30 RBI. She was sixth in the Southland in doubles with 12 and tied for first in triples with five. She also received All-Conference honors.

“Erin Krause was at second base last year,” Lewis said. “She spent a little bit of time at third base, but third base is her natural position. Bringing Claire (Sisco) in freed us up to be able to move Erin back to third base. She was actually a first-team all-conference and all-region as a second baseman, but putting her over at third is going to be big for us. We call her ‘E money,’ because she was money. She was a kid that when we recruited her, she was undersized but the actions were there – great swing, great hands, arm.,

“We thought by the end of maybe her sophomore or junior year, when she gets strong, she’s going to really help us. She said, ‘nah, I’m going to hit three hole for you and start every game as a true freshman and lead the team in hitting.’ So again, you don’t know what you’re going to get. She’s another kid with a really, really high softball IQ. You get her and Sisco on the base paths together and I just stand there. It’s like they are connected at the brain. It’s pretty fun to watch.”

Sisco playing second base has come in a roundabout way.

“We actually struggled at second base last year. We had a revolving door there. We tried to get a JUCO kid or a transfer portal kid to come in and solve that position. We didn’t have any luck there,” said Lewis. “We did have luck by bringing in an outfielder from the University of Tulsa as a transfer, Gabby Higbee.

“That allowed us to move Claire Sisco, who was our center fielder last year into second base because she’s also an excellent second baseman. That position is so hard that, to me, it’s the hardest position on the field to play because you have to have the highest softball IQ.”

The IQ is needed, Lewis said, because of the command a player needs at the position.

“The shortstop is the most athletic one, and kind of technically the leader, but second base between our cuts, relays, and bunt defenses, has more responsibility,” Lewis explained. “A lot of times, a ball may take them up the middle and they don’t get to it. Well, the first basement has to drop to be the cut to home and we don’t leave first base uncovered Now they go, ‘oh, now I got to go back over this way.’  It just takes a different level of intelligence there.”

The coach admitted there was some concern with moving Sisco.

“You kind of have a nervousness about taking her out of center, but that’s really just how good Gabby is out there, too,” Lewis said. “She’s just as good and then it allowed us to move her. A lot of times last year, with the way we pitch, you get a lot of flares over shortstop, second base, first base, third base area. Now we have a center fielder playing second base who goes and gets everything.

“She just really solidified our defense, and offensively, as a freshman, she was up and down offensively, but still led our team in stolen bases. She’s just really good on the base paths but think she’s gonna have a really solid year offensively as well.

The shortstop is senior Samantha Gwiazda.

“Her season was cut short last year because of an injury,” Lewis related. “We were playing at Commerce. A kid put a really hard tag on her and hyperextended her elbow and tore her UCL completely off the bone. She’s had two surgeries on it.

“She missed the entire fall. She got to do a little bit, but basically came back like the last week of the fall and then went home over break and busted her butt to get ready. We were real nervous because we have a freshman, we brought in that can play shortstop, but we want to be able to take advantage of the experience of seniors and so it’s really big to get her back. I believe she’s in the top two defensive shortstops in the conference. She’s an athletic rabbit, between her and Claire Sisco, our defense in the infield is going to be significantly better than it was last year.”

In the outfield, Higbee had a past connection to Lewis.

“She was a kid that I had committed originally at the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi when I was an assistant there. When the head coach left, she decommitted,” said Lewis. “I thought we were gonna get her here last year as a freshman. She’s from Oklahoma, so Tulsa came in and made her a pretty good offer, and she went there. Things didn’t work out for her, so I was glad it finally worked out for us.

“We had to fine tune some things with her swing, and she’s been, ‘sir, I’ll do whatever it takes.’ It’s really coming around offensively. She’s going to start in the leadoff spot for us and play center field. Great arm, just a lock-down center fielder.

The right fielder is Abby Anderson.

“She started in Arizona State. She was a pitcher, but in high school, she’s from Arizona, she was a 6-A state player of the year and was a two-way kid and went to ASU as an outfielder,” Lewis explained. “They had a coaching change, some pitchers left, and they said, ‘you need to pitch.’

“She spent her freshman year pitching. She red-shirted a year because of an injury and then quit softball and was out of the game for two years. And I saw her two summers go in. The transfer portal was like,‘wait, that Abby Henderson?’ I talked to her old travel ball coach. He’s like, ‘she wants to play,’ so brought her in and was going to do both pitch and hit for us. Because of not doing anything for two years, her body just couldn’t handle both, and she wanted to play outfield, and we needed her in the outfield, so she played outfield for us all last year, so basically a 23-year-old sophomore last year. She’s now reclassified and decided that this would be her last year. Her body’s got one more run in it. I expect big things from her as well.”

Other players in the mix include Reagan Heflin and Mckenzie Champagne.

Nicholls has a returnee and a newcomer at catcher.

The returnee is sophomore Brynne Songy.

“Last year, Brynne Songy was ‘The Cajun Cannon’ as she got dubbed at the LSU game when she threw out LSU’s center fielder,” said Lewis. “She’s just special behind the plate. She has a really strong softball IQ and a cannon for an arm.”

The newcomer is Rylie Rutherford.

“She was a two-time All-American from McLennan Junior College out of Waco, Texas. She’s equally as good defensively and swings the crap out of it,” Lewis said. She’s a really strong kid. Those two kids are going to be both of our main catchers.

“They’ll split time. You need multiple catchers to get through a year.”

Back on the mound is senior Audrey McNeil. She was 13-8 a year ago with a 2.40 earned run average with 100 strikeouts while pitching 143 innings.

“I recruited her to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and she ended up in the transfer portal,” Lewis said. “We needed depth in the circle. We pretty much had to overhaul our pitching staff. I knew what she was capable of, but she had only thrown like 15 innings the year before.

“I wasn’t necessarily sure what we were going to get out of her. When they’re unhappy mentally, you just never know, but I knew she could help us. Putting her in a healthy environment, I didn’t expect her to do what she did last year, but boy, we sure benefited from it. I expect her to have another solid senior year. She’s put in the work in the weight room and just trying to go out with a special final season.”

The other top of the rotation pitcher for Nicholls from a year ago is sophomore Molly Yoo.

“(McNeill and Yoo) both threw over 130 innings and (Yoo’s) left-handed. They complement each other well,” said Lewis. “Audrey’s a drop ball, heavy change up pitcher and right-handed. Molly’s left-handed, and she throws a little harder. She was 63, 65 (mph), where Audrey’s 59, 61, but Molly’s curveball is special, and it breaks in on righties and people struggle with it. It’s different and especially coming from the left side, it’s something that people don’t see. Curve ball, rise ball, she’s got a lot of pitches change. She’s a kid that just doesn’t stop working.”

Another freshman pitcher from a year ago is Averi Paden.

“She had the third-most innings last year. She’s a real change-of-pace kid,” Lewis said. “She threw a lot of big games for us last year, starting at LSU. We only lost to LSU 4-3. She threw like four innings, and she throws slower left-handed, but it moves like crazy, and she changes speeds real well. So when we play teams like LSU when they’re used to seeing 70, and here comes 55, 56 with a lot of changeups on top of it, it really throws them off. She’s really kind of a specialty there but I know she wants to pitch more, too. She’s getting stronger. Her velocity is up.

Paden is among those who are expected to take some pressure off of the main two starters,

“Between her and Katy Sanders, Molly VandenBout, and Madison Fulfer, we hopefully expect they can eat up a lot more innings, so Molly (Yoo) and Audrey don’t have to because last year at the end of the year, they just ran out of gas and that’s where our season ended. They were gassed in the conference tournament,” said Lewis.