March 23, 2010

Box Score

BATON ROUGE - The Colonels jumped out to a three-run lead, but it wasn't enough to hold off a Jaguar rally as the Nicholls State University baseball team (12-8) concluded its five game road trip with an 11-4 loss at Southern (5-8) on Tuesday night.

After winning the first three of their five-game season series with the Jags, the Colonels fell victim to a 15-hit Southern attack on Tuesday night at Lee-Hines Field.

Tristan Rogers led the Colonels by going 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI. The Nicholls third baseman also got the Colonels off to a fast start with a run-scoring double in the second. After putting the Colonels up 1-0 after two, Rogers delivered an RBI single to make it 2-0. Ray Eureste followed by driving in Rogers three batters later with a run-scoring single of his own to make it 3-0 in the top of the third.

However, after Colonel starter Ryan Cooper kept the Jaguars off the board in the first three frames, the sophomore lefty ran into trouble in the fourth. Southern strung together five hits to plate four runs and take a 4-3 lead.

Nicholls battled back in the fifth as Adam Miley beat out a double play ball and advanced to third on Blake Bergeron's base hit before scoring on a passed ball to make it 4-4.

Unfortunately, the Colonels couldn't keep pace with a red-hot Southern lineup as the Jags plated two more each in the fifth and sixth and three in the eighth against the Colonel bullpen.

Meanwhile, three Southern relievers combined to allow just one run on three hits over the final 5.1 IP to seal it.

The Colonels will now return to Nicholls to face Stephen F. Austin in a three-game series beginning on Friday. The Colonels will conclude their three-game series against the Jaguars on March 30 when the two teams head to Houma's Southland Field.