Southern Miss game followed by HCU series start of 11 straight road games for Colonels

The Nicholls baseball team will be away from home until May 10 with the Colonels playing their next 11 games on the road.

Nicholls faces a midweek game at Southern Mississippi at 6 p.m. Tuesday before beginning a three-game Southland Conference series at Houston Christian.

After having no midweek game a week ago, the Colonels are back to their normal pattern with the non-league game against Southern Mississippi before going on the road for a conference series.

“I don’t know if it was the groove,” said Nicholls coach Mike Silva. “I think it’s more of a mindset thing for us. I think a lot of times we let things that are out of our control dictate our emotions and how we attack the game. That’s immaturity. That’s disappointing because we have older players that are playing like freshmen a lot of days and that’s really not acceptable. It’s not OK. It’s good to get back in a groove of playing. We go to a good atmosphere on Tuesday at Southern Miss and then over to Houston Christian.”

All three games at HCU Friday through Sunday are scheduled for early-afternoon starts.

The road has actually been good to the Colonels this season in conference play. Nicholls is 7-5 in the SLC after Sunday’s 13-5 win over Northwestern State – the only conference home win so far this year.

Houston Christian is 6-6 in the conference and 13-21 overall after taking two of three games in its most recent series at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The Huskies play at the University of Houston on Tuesday before taking on the Colonels.

After being swept at home by Lamar to open Southland play, the Huskies have taken two of three games in every conference series since then.

“They have been beating everybody. They’ve been winning their series, and they have really good players and it’s a tough place to go play. They play all day games. It’s gonna be hot and windy in Houston. It’s another challenge and opportunity for us. We gotta go take care of business, make some hay here shortly.”

HCU’s home ballpark does not have lights, so games for the three-day set are slated to start at 2 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday.

That means playing in the middle of the day in the heat and humidity in Houston.

“Playing at night didn’t help us this weekend,” said Silva, pointing out the Colonels’ only win in the Northwestern came in the only day game in the series. “We went to Corpus and that’s a unique setup, too. It was a short week, and we found a way to get the job done. I would just like to see us play with some consistency. I’m talking about emotional consistency – just staying locked into the game and fundamentally executing. We just haven’t done a good job of that. Obviously, that’s a reflection of coaching. I gotta find a way to get through to them.”

HCU won the first two games of its series against Corpus Christi, 6-2 and 17-1. The Huskies lost the finale on Sunday 13-12.

In the opening game of the series, HCU broke a 2-2 tie with two runs in each of the eighth and ninth innings, including a two-run home run by William Jewell in the eighth.

Samuel Benjamin belted a pair of home runs to power the Huskies in the Game 2 win. HCU starter Parker Edwards allowed only four hits in the complete-game victory.

In the finale, the Huskies scored six runs in the top of the eighth inning to take a 12-9 lead but surrendered four runs in the bottom half of the inning in suffering the loss.

Benjamin went 3 for 5 in the game with a home run and drove in four runs.

An outfielder, Benjamin leads the Huskies in batting with a .328 average. He tops the team in home runs with 11 and is second on the team in runs batted in with 31. He also leads the team in stolen bases with eight in 11 attempts.

Catcher Tyler LaRue leads the team with 34 RBI. He is hitting .278 with eight home runs.

The only player hitting above. 500 besides Benjamin is infielder Travis Roper, who is batting .318.

HCU has a team earned run average of 7.88.

In the Huskies’ series-opening 6-2 win over the Islanders, Ethan Coronel got his first start of the year in conference play. He went two innings, giving up one run on two hits and one walk.

Coronel (0-2) has made two starts on the season. He sports a 17.11 ERA. He has allowed 21 runs on 22 hits and 11 walks, while striking out 10 in 11 innings.

Edwards (4-3) has a 3.78 ERA in six starts, allowing 14 runs on 34 hits and nine walks, while striking out 21 in 33 1/3 innings.

Rye Gunter (2-0) pitched the first three innings in the series finale to the Islanders. He allowed four runs, three of which were earned, on five hits and one walk, while striking out two.

Gunter sports a 5.40 ERA in seven starts. He has allowed 21 runs on 31 hits and 16 walks, while striking out 27.

Nicholls can have success, Silva said, if the Colonels simply don’t beat themselves.

“We’ve had a lot of older players have too many freshman moments emotionally,” the Nicholls coach said. “We have to be better when we’re facing adversity. The reality of it, we had a chance to win every game this weekend – all self-inflicted stuff that we’re too old to be doing, making those mistakes.”