Softball team gets unexpected time off in preparing for SLC opener at Northwestern State

Because of inclement weather the Nicholls softball team had almost a week to get over their recent series against the University of Louisiana at Monroe as the Lady Colonels prepare to open Southland Conference play.

A midweek game at Southern University was cancelled because of bad weather. With anticipated bad weather expected in north Louisiana, Nicholls’ upcoming SLC-opening series against Northwestern State in Natchitoches has been pushed back a day.

As a result, the three-game series between Nicholls and Northwestern State will begin Saturday instead of Friday. The teams are now scheduled to meet in double-header beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday’s game is slated to begin at noon.

The Lady Colonels are 12-10 on the season after dropping the finale of the ULM series 12-0 on Sunday. The result was a departure from the first two games which were decided by one run. Nicholls dropped the opener 4-3 and won the second game 5-4.

The benefit or detriment of almost a week off following a one-sided loss is in the eye of the beholder, according to Nicholls coach Justin Lewis.

“I think you can really look at it either way,” the Nicholls coach said. “It’d be nice to get a couple of the pitchers right (by playing a game before the SLC opener), but we’re just going to do that in practice. Or you can look at it as it gives us more time to work. We’re kind of looking at it as it gives us more opportunity to work. We’ll get our pitchers figured out in the bullpen, and we’ll do some live stuff and practice for them and try to get them as right as possible.

“It gave us an extra day off. That can always be helpful. We had some people with some little nagging injuries that gave them an extra day of rest.  In this game, you’ve got to be able to adjust and adapt. Hopefully, we’ve done a good job of that. We’ll find out this weekend.”

Before the 12-0 loss, the Lady Colonels dropped a one-run game late, as has happened on occasion, but Nicholls also won in a similar fashion.

“Sometimes you’re gonna be in a pitchers’ duel and when you got a 3-1 lead, you need to win that game,” said Lewis. “Our pitchers, they know that we just needed to win that first game.

“The second game, I was proud of the fight. We tried numerous times to give that game away as well and still ended up winning it. If you do what you should have done the first game and then we end up winning Game 2, then we win the series, and you don’t worry about Game 3.”

In the finale of the series, Nicholls starter Audrey McNeill allowed five runs in the first inning without recording an out.

“Obviously, we wanted to perform better than we did,” said Lewis. “Again, we just got some key people, especially in the circle that we have to get right. If Audrey’s who Audrey normally is, then Game 3 is probably a whole different story. To come out and for her not to be sharp, which usually is never the case with her. She always gives us a chance to win. I think that’s more of a fluke than anything, but we need to be able to win the games when we’re in control of them and not give them away late. That’s happened a couple of times.”

There is a bit of concern, but no panic, within the softball team, according to Lewis.

“It’s a little early to be too concerned, but obviously, it shows us where we got to work. It’s pretty difficult to ask your offense to come back from four-plus runs in the first inning multiple games in a row. Again, if Audrey is who she normally is, that doesn’t happen. We’ll kind of chalk that one up to that but it’s got to be a focus that we all have to be better,” said Lewis.

Nicholls is 12-10 heading into conference play after facing a tough non-league schedule, Lewis said.

“The schedule that we set was a tougher schedule in the preseason,” he said. “Last year, I don’t think we were really prepared for conference, and we lost some games early that I don’t feel like we should have lost just specifically because of the lack of velocity that we weren’t ready for.

“I think this year with going to Florida State and LSU early and UL and some of these other these other arms – ULM had a couple arms that threw pretty hard. I think we’re ready for that.”

Northwestern State enters the series 11-12 on the season. The Lady Demons are coming off the Longhorn Invitational in which they went 2-2. Northwestern defeated Hofstra and Tarleton State and lost to No. 2 Texas 10-2 and Penn State 3-2.

Nicholls will have to contend with two top starters in Northwestern State’s Maggie Darr and Kenzie Seely.

Darr is 4-5 on the season with a 2.29 earned run average and 45 strikeouts. Seely is 5-5 and sports a 3.27 ERA and 44 strikeouts.

“Northwestern’s got two really, really good arms that that are both mid-60s arms and really good change ups. I think we’re better prepared. How we execute, we’ll see how that goes,” said Lewis.

The Lady Demons are hitting .235 as a team, but their bats seem to come alive when facing Nicholls. In four games last year, Northwestern State scored eight runs in one game, six in another, and three each in two other outings.

“Their offense has been struggling a little bit, but they’re a team over the last two years that offensively every time they play us, they do pretty well,” said Lewis. “I’m not going to let the numbers fool us. They seem to have a different set of confidence when they play us, so you kind of take the numbers and throw them out the window at that point.

“They’re a scrappy bunch. With a new head coach, they seem to be running more than normal. We’re going to have our work cut out for us, for sure.”