Colonel baseball gets taste of Big 10 atmosphere with series at Nebraska

Before Southland Conference play begins for the Nicholls baseball team March 22-24 at home against the University of New Orleans, the Colonels will face a few stern tests along the way.

That begins with a home game scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday against Dillard before the Colonels travel to take on the University of Nebraska in a three-game series slated for Friday through Sunday.

First up for Nicholls is a game against a 4-16 Dillard team coming off three losses in a series sweep at Wiley University. The Colonels defeated Dillard earlier in the season 14-2.

Nebraska 9-4 going into the week after taking two of three games at home against South Alabama. Nebraska was slated to play at Wichita State on Tuesday and Wednesday before hosting the Colonels.

Nicholls lost to South Alabama 11-10 in 10 innings in one of its only three defeats on the season.

“We got Dillard on Tuesday. We fly out to Lincoln on Wednesday. Nebraska is going to be a tough challenge on the road in a really fun environment. It’s gonna be a (playoff) regional-type environment against a regional-caliber team,” Nicholls coach Mike Silva said.

Nicholls is coming off a three-game sweep at home over Grambling. After putting up big offensive numbers in winning the first two games against the Tigers, the Colonels got strong pitching from starter Michael Quevedo and opportunistic hitting in a 5-2 win on Sunday.

Nebraska has a table-setter at the top of the lineup in Riley Silva. The leadoff hitter for the Cornhuskers, he has started all 13 games, sporting a .348 average and has nine stolen bases in 10 attempts.

Case Sanderson, who has started six of 10 games, is hitting .381.

The top power hitters for Nebraska are Josh Caron, who is hitting .283 with four home runs, and Tyler Stone, who is batting .313 with three homers.

Brett Sears is 2-0 on the mound for the Cornhuskers in four starts. He sports a 1.78 ERA, having allowed five runs in 25 1/3 innings, with 28 strikeouts.

Edgar Alverez powers the Nicholls offense. He leads the team in hitting with a .468 average, four home runs, and 29 runs batted in.

The hot-hotting first baseman is coming off the Grambling series in which he picked up six hits in eight at-bats, including two homer runs, scoring four runs and driving in 10, while also drawing four walks.

Following the Nebraska series, Nicholls will take on Louisiana Tech in a midweek home game next week before opening conference play.

“Louisiana Tech is as good as anybody in the country on a given night. Then we roll into conference play. So we wanted to take care of business,” Silva said. “I feel like we need to go out and play well on Tuesday. We need to play well in Nebraska.

“We want to play really consistent solid baseball and then carry that home against Louisiana Tech and just build confidence and playing really quality, clean baseball and playing our style of baseball. That’s we’re looking for moving forward. The kids are gonna be excited. It’s gonna be a fun environment. They (the Cornhuskers) are a well-coached team. Let’s get through Tuesday and then we’ll focus on Nebraska.”