Nicholls softball team has chance to show how it stacks up against top-ranked Texas

A dramatic finish allowed the Nicholls softball team to defeat visiting Southeastern Louisiana last Saturday.

After SLU scored two runs in the top of the third inning, Nicholls exploded for five runs in the bottom half of the inning on the way to a 7-5 win that allowed the Lady Colonels to secure a series win.

Nicholls, clinging to a 7-3 lead, had to hold off the Lady Lions, who scored two runs in the top of the seventh inning.

The final out came when Nicholls first baseman Rylie Rutherford dove to field a grounder to her right by SLU’s Bailey Krolczky. Rutherford crawled her way back to first, touching the bag with her glove to barely beat Krolczky to the base to end the game.

“We hadn’t ever taken a series from them, it was nice,” third-year Nicholls coach Justin Lewis said. “We thought we should have won the series last year, but we made a couple errors that cost us. They’ve been at the top of this conference for the entire time I have been here. It was really big to finally win the series against them.”

Nicholls is now 25-21 overall, including 12-6 in the Southland Conference.

The Lady Colonels face a drama of a different sort Thursday when they play at the University of Texas, the top-ranked team in the nation. The first pitch is slated for 6 p.m.

“Some idiot scheduled this game a long time ago and kind of regretting it now,” said Lewis. “I knew they were going to be really, really good this year. I didn’t know they’d be the No. 1 team in the nation by the time we got to face them. It’ll be a really good environment, so it’ll be fun for the girls.

“Obviously, the expectations aren’t super high, but don’t be surprised if we go over there and compete with them. We got a whole bunch of Texas kids. That’s the flagship program in the state. I’m sure a lot of them grew up wanting to go there when they were little girls, so don’t be surprised if we don’t compete with them. We can’t waste to throw Audrey (McNeill) and Molly (Yoo) too much during that game because we’ve got a really important series with UIW starting the next day.”

Texas, the top-ranked team in the nation, is 38-6 overall, including 17-4 in the Big 12. The Longhorns are coming off a three-game sweep of Kansas and have won nine games in a row.

The Longhorns sport a .363 team batting average. Texas had nine batters with at least 88 at-bats hitting .336 or higher.

Ashton Maloney leads the team in batting with a .423 average. Mia Scott is the other Longhorn hitting above.400 with a .402 average.

Reese Atwood, who is third on the team in batting at .399, leads Texas in home runs with 15 and runs batted in with 66.

Kayden Henry paces the team in stolen bases with 21 steals in 24 attempts.

The Texas pitching staff has a team earned run average of 1.66. The top four pitchers for the Longhorns sport ERAs of 1.87 or lower.37.

Citlaly Gutierrez and Estelle Czech each have a 1.66 ERA.

Gutierrez is 8-0 on the season, allowing 16 runs on 56 hits and 11 walks, while striking out 37 in 67 2/3 innings. Czech is 7-3 on the season, yielding 11 runs on 32 hits and seven walks, while striking out 19 in 46 1/3 innings.

Teagan Kavan and Mac Morgan each sport a 1.87 ERA. Kavan is 13-2 on the year, allowing 22 runs on 52 hits and 24 walks, while striking out 82 in 82 1/3 innings. Morgan is 10-1, allowing 18 runs on 47 hits and 17 walks, while striking out 26 in 67 1/3 innings.

It’s not every day that a school on the level of Nicholls gets to face the No. 1 team in the country.

“It would be good for the recognition of the program,” Lewis said. “That makes it even bigger if you hang with them for a while and compete and even pull off an upset. Obviously, then you talk about the publicity, not only for the program, but the university. That’s pretty awesome.”

It will be a quick turnaround for Nicholls following the Texas game, opening a three-game Southland Conference series Friday at Incarnate Word in San Antonio.

Incarnate Word is 28-12 overall, including 12-6 in the SLC. UIW hosted Texas-San Antonio on Tuesday before taking on Nicholls.

UIW is coming off a three-game Southland series in which it took two of three at Lamar.

Incarnate Word won the first two games of the series before dropping the final game 5-4 last Saturday.

UIW was two outs away from a series sweep before Lamar’s Brooke Davis delivered a run-scoring single in the bottom of the seventh to break a 4-4 tie.

“They’re one of the top-hitting teams in the in the conference statistically. They’ve got a freshman arm that’s really doing well for them,” said Lewis. “We will have our work cut out for us a second weekend in a row. As you get this time of year, every one of those series are really competitive, which helps you as you get into the conference tournament, playing in these high-pressure, high-stakes games for a little while now.”

Incarnate Word is hitting .328 as a team.

Victoria Altamirano leads UIW in most offensive categories. She paces the team with a .475 batting average, 10 home runs and 41 runs batted in. No other hitter has more than three home runs.

“She’s a beast,” Lewis said of Altamirano. “She was a kid that I actually really, really liked in the recruiting process. She’s just from way, way South Texas down in what they call the Valley. It’s at the very bottom top of Texas.

“Most of those kids, San Antonio is about as far as they’ll go away from home. She’s already about five-and-a-half, six hours away from home. Getting her out to Nicholls wasn’t much of a shot to make that happen, but I really liked her when she was in high school travel ball. I thought she would really hit at a high level, and she’s proven that. She did really well against us as a true freshman last year. She’s in position right now to be the Hitter of the Year in in the conference.”

Jillian Gutierrez is second on the team in hitting with a .352 average.

In a 4-2 win over Lamar to open the three-game series, Larissa Jacquez, the aforementioned freshman arm, went the distance for the win. She allowed two runs on five hits and four walks, while striking out four.

Jacquez is 9-4 on the season and sports a 2.03 earned run average. She has allowed 27 runs on 68 hits and 37 walks, while striking out 106 in 93 innings.

Her assortment of pitches includes the curveball, screwball, and rise ball.

“She’ll elevate it and strike you out. She locates really well. She’s got a little bit of velocity and just a really competitive kid and isn’t throwing like a true freshman,” said Lewis.

Samantha Portillo also went the distance in UIW’s 8-0 win in the second game of the series. She allowed two hits and struck out one in six innings.

Portillo is 8-3 on the season with a 1.97 ERA. Portillo has allowed 18 runs on 43 hits and 28 walks, while striking out 52 in 64 innings.

In the 5-4 loss in the finale, starter Bella Mitchell lasted only two-thirds of an inning, yielding three runs on three hits and one walk.

Potillo suffered the loss in relief. She allowed one run on six hits and one walk in 3 1/3 innings.

Mitchell is 5-1 on the season with a 4.24 ERA. Mitchell has allowed 24 runs on 45 hits and 24 walks, while striking out 29 in 39 2/3 innings.

Repeating the type of effort the team showed the last weekend against Southeastern Louisiana, said Lewis, would be a good recipe for Nicholls against UIW.

“We got to execute when we get the chances to move runners into scoring position,” the Nicholls coach said. “We’ve got to take advantage and put the ball on the on the ground or out in the outfield, in the air, and score runs.

“I’m pretty confident our pitching is gonna keep us in it and give us a chance to win. It’s just going to be offensively, can we score enough and then you can’t shoot yourself in the foot and play bad defense. We’ve been playing pretty good defense, but ultimately, it’s going to come down to the bats. Hopefully, we can build off of what we did against Southeastern.”