Light schedule for Nicholls softball team features midweek home game against USM

It will be an unusually light week for the Nicholls softball team.

The only game for the Lady Colonels this week will be when they host the University of Southern Mississippi at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Swanner Field at Geo Surfaces Park.

After that, Nicholls will not be in action again until it hosts LSU on March 26.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Nicholls coach Justin Lewis said of the break in the schedule. “It gives us some time to really get to work on the practice field, Yeah, it’s definitely a good thing.”

The extra time off, Lewis said, gives the team additional opportunities to work on adjusting at the plate following the McNeese series.

“We went back to the drawing board (Monday) and worked on our adjustments at the plate. I think some kids had some pretty big a-ha moments. Hopefully, they’ll be able to translate that going forward,” the Nicholls coach said.

Nicholls (16-14) is coming off a three-game series against McNeese State in Thibodaux. The Lady Colonels were victorious in one of the games, defeating the Cowgirls 1-0. Nicholls dropped the other two, losing both featuring dominant performances by McNeese pitcher Shaelyn Sanders.

Southern Mississippi (12-14) goes into the game having lost the final two of a three-game home series against the University of Louisiana at Monroe to open Sun Belt Conference play.

“They seem to be in a similar spot to us, at least offensively,” Lewis said of the Golden Eagles. “They’ve got a couple of hitters and then they got some kids that are trying to figure it out. Statistically, they look fairly similar. They’re well-coached.”

Unlike baseball, in which teams announce their pitching rotation going into a series, such is not the case in softball, so there is a bit of the unknown going into Wednesday’s game for the Lady Colonels.

“They’ve got a couple of kids that have a bunch of innings and then some others that have also thrown significant innings,” said Lewis. “Looking at what they got ahead on the weekend, it’s tough to say if we’re going to get their top two. We don’t know what to prepare for, so we’ve got to prepare for a lot of it.”

USM won the first game of the series against Louisiana-Monroe behind the pitching of Loganne Stepp. Stepp held ULM to one run on three hits and three walks, while striking out four.

Stepp (4-3) sports a 4.50 earned run average on the season, allowing 24 earned runs on 45 hits, while striking out 29 in 48 innings.

The only USM pitcher to work more innings is Brooklyn White.

White (2-5) has a 7.79 ERA, allowing 47 earned runs on 67 hits and 30 walks, while striking out 26 in 54 1/3 innings.

Hannah Borden leads the Golden Eagles in most offensive categories.

She tops the team in batting average, home runs and runs batted in. In 26 games, she has a .393 average with eight home runs and 25 RBI.

The only other batter hitting above .300 for USM is Maria Smith. Smith is batting .311 and leads the team with five stolen bases.\

As always, the main objective for the Lady Colonels in the USM game is to get a win.

But it also goes beyond that.

“Basically, it’s to get healthy,” Lewis said. “Not physically, but game-wise healthy and get some swings back on track. Hopefully, the pitching continues to give us a chance to win. If we can get our bats rolling, we would feel pretty good going into the bye week and then coming back around for LSU.”