Nicholls volleyball team finally gets to play home after 10 road matches

Jonea Rima speaks not only for herself, but also for her squad, when discussing the Nicholls volleyball team’s home game at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Stopher Gym to open Southland Conference play against Houston Christian University.

“For me, it’s kind of too good to be true,” the first-year Nicholls coach said. “We have been on the road so long. It will be nice to be in front of the home crowd. I’ve heard great things about our home crowd just from the community, faculty, staff, and student body. It will be great just to see the experience for the kids that match.”

Nicholls is 2-8 on the season with all of its matching coming on the road. All of the matches have taken place over the course of four tournaments away from home.

In the most recent event, the Lady Colonels lost to host Louisiana-Lafayette 17-25, 19-25, 25-22, 19-25 before falling in three sets to Prairie View A&M 23-25, 23-25, 19-25 to stretch the Nicholls losing streak to four matches.

In the UL-Lafayette match, Nicholls trailed 9-16 in the third game before a six-point run inched the Lady Colonels to within 15-16 before eventually pulling out the 25-22 win.

Autumn Perry, a freshman outside hitter, had 14 kills to lead Nicholls in the match. Trinity Vinzant, a junior outside hitter, had 11 kills.

Kendall Battistella, a junior, and sophomore Taylor Heeb, combined for 33 assists for Nicholls.

“It was really good competition,” Rima said. “I saw some really good things from our team. I think we really played well on Thursday night against Lafayette – hitting percentages, making smart decisions. I think we did a lot of things right. Lafayette is a very talented program. I think we rose to the challenge. I was pretty happy with our performance. We would have liked to win, but I was happy with the set win.”

Nicholls fell in three games in a noon match the following day against Prairie View.

“We had some trouble with some serve receive,” Rima assessed “We were a little flatter than we wanted to be coming into the game, but I think that this is all a growth and learning curve to move forward.

“The quick turnaround from a 7 p.m. match to a noon match is just something we will have to get used to in season two (conference play). We don’t play back-to-back but we play those early 11 a.m. matches as well in conference on days that we host football games. We will have some early games, regardless.”

After 10 games, Rima said, injuries put her team is a bit behind schedule in some aspects of play.

“We’ve had some unfortunate injuries along the way in our season,” the Nicholls coach said. “Every team has that struggle and talent should overcome. Slowly, we are kind of getting everybody back in the mix, so I think in the next couple of weeks, we should have everybody back.

“If things go our way, I think that will help kind of boost morale, give us a little depth in areas, and give us some more options as well. It will be nice to have everybody back on board. I know everybody wants to be out there and it’s been a challenge for a few kids that just had a few unfortunate accidents that have kept them off the court.”

Nicholls has gotten good play through the opening 10 games from a pair of outside hitters, according to Rima.

“I think that both of our outsides have done some great things with Trinity Vinzant and Autumn Perry on the outside. Autumn’s had a couple of all-tournament selection teams from the past couple of weekends. Trin has just been pretty solid, which is ball control and kind of doing anything you ask of her to do. Both have had some great nights offensively and defensively,” Rima said.

The first home match of the season against HCU for the Lady Colonels also means the Southland opener.

“I think that they are returning quite a few kids. They are picked to be at the top of the conference,” Rima said. “I think it’s going to be a tough matchup. In the past, I think it’s been anybody’s night. I think that’s what’s nice about the Southland. You can kind of come in and the contribution and your work in that two hours, the outcome can go either way.

“I think they have played some tough competition, but they have the road challenge to get here. I think that could have an effect as well. I know everybody’s got their own kind of injuries and battles as well, so you never know what’s going on the other team until they get here.”

The HCU game will not represent a homestand. After taking on the Huskies, Nicholls will be back on the road to face Northwestern State on Saturday.

“I think we have some nice battles coming up. We are starting out with a couple of tough competitions right away, but it would be nice to kind of see the conference as a whole. I’m just excited to see the talent level and see everything kind of works together,” Rima said.