Colonel baseball team unable to hold onto brief lead in 10-7 loss at Louisiana Tech

Nicholls seemed to have figured things out in the top of the third inning of its game Wednesday night against Louisiana Tech in Ruston.

The Colonels went into the game coming off 9-0 loss a day earlier at LSU in which Nicholls was limited to three hits and never got a runner past second base.

Those numbers stretched to 11 innings after uneventful trips to the plate in the first two innings against the Bulldogs. Meanwhile, Louisiana Tech was leading 4-0 after a four-run second inning.

Then came the third inning.

Erick Ordonez opened the inning with a double to left center field. After Drake Anderson struck out, Kade Turnage reached base on a throwing error by Tech third baseman Grant Comeaux.

A fly out by Parker Coddou was the second out of the inning, but one streak was broken when Ordonez advanced to third on the play.

Nicholls first baseman Edgar Alvarez, one of the top hitters in the nation with an average over .400 but coming off a 0 for 3 effort against LSU, singled past shortstop to bring the scoreless streak to an end.

Gerardo Villarreal followed with a three-run home run to tie the game. Garrett Felix made it back-to-back homers and the Colonels suddenly had a 5-4 lead.

The third inning, however, was far from over.

In the home half of the inning, singles by Michael Ballard and Adarius Myers put two runners aboard. Sam Hill, the second pitcher of the night for Nicholls, hit Comeaux with a pitch to load the bases.

The Colonels were one out away from getting out of the inning when Hill got Kasten Furr to fly out to shallow right field.

Dalton Davis followed by going to left field with his fly ball – and over the fence – with the grand slam putting Tech on top 8-5 on the way to handing the Colonels a 10-7 loss.

The loss dropped Nicholls to 27-16 while Louisiana Tech moved to 30-13.

Louisiana Tech took the early lead with a four-run second inning.

After giving up three leadoff home runs in the loss to LSU, the Colonels continued the trend against Tech.

Ballard led off the bottom of the second inning with a home run to right center field off of Nicholls starter Dylan Farley.

The Bulldogs didn’t stop there in the second inning. Adarius Myers, who went 4 for 4 against Nicholls when the teams met earlier in the year in Thibodaux, kept his hot hitting against the Colonels with an infield hit.

With one out, a double by Comeaux put runners and third and second. A single through the right side of the infield by Furr scored Comeaux.

Farley was replaced by Sam Hill, who quickly yielded a sacrifice fly by Davis to score another run.

The final run of the inning came on a single by Cole McConnell, making it 4-0 before the Colonels made their short-lived rally.

Hill (3-1), the second of seven Nicholls pitchers, suffered the loss. He allowed four runs on four hits, while striking out one in 1 1/3 innings.

Jacob Havern (3-2), the second of six Tech pitchers, picked up the win, giving up one hit and striking out one in two-thirds of an inning.

Ethan Bates picked up his 12th save of the year.

With no Southland Conference weekend series scheduled, the Colonels will not be in action again until April 30 when they travel to Baton Rouge to take on Southern University.