THIBODAUX, La. – Coming off of a rousing five-set win over the Texas-Arlington Mavericks last Saturday, the Nicholls State University volleyball team closes out the regular season this week against Central Arkansas and Northwestern State on the road, still in contention for a spot in the Southland Conference Tournament.

At 18-12 and 5-9 in the conference, the Colonels are tied with McNeese and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for the eighth seed heading into the final weekend of play. McNeese are winners of their last three, while TAMUCC are losers of their last two.

There are a few scenarios that will keep the race interesting until the final games on Saturday and will involve no less than six teams, but for the Colonels the focus is really on two of them.

Nicholls' best shot to make the tournament means winning both matches and going to 7-9 in the league, included in that means that the Islanders, who own the tiebreaker with their 3-2 win over the Colonels, would have to lose one, if not both, of their matches this weekend. McNeese has also gotten into the race, and Nicholls would need to keep pace with the Cowgirls as well to be assured of a spot in the tournament.

Beginning with Central Arkansas on Thursday, a team that has lost their last three matches and is currently tied with Lamar for the division lead, the Sugar Bears defeated Nicholls 3-0 in Thibodaux earlier this year holding the Colonels to .126 hitting as a unit. If the season were to end today, the Bears would be no higher than the fourth or fifth seed depending on how the tiebreaker with Lamar would play out sitting at 8-6 in Southland play.

Interestingly enough, the Colonels' last opponent in Northwestern State still has an outside shot of making the postseason if they win out and the teams around them stumble. However, since starting out of the gate strong, the Lady Demons have lost their last five matches and is 8-19 overall and 4-10 in the league. The Colonels will need a much better performance than what they had in their first meeting earlier this year, dropping a 3-1 match to the Lady Demons at home.

Coming on strong, and having defeated both of the previous two teams, the Cowgirls are 10-18 and 5-9 in the league, tied with the Colonels and Islanders for a tournament berth. The Colonels will need to keep up with McNeese, and holds the overall tiebreaker with McNeese as the team swept the Cowgirls this year 3-2 and 3-0.

The last two teams that could cause headaches for tournament seedings are UTA and Stephen F. Austin. The Colonels will need help from these two as UTA plays TAMUCC and SFA plays McNeese Thursday. At 7-7 and 6-8, the Mavericks and Ladyjacks have the sixth and seventh spots locked up, but any combination that has either team splitting their last two matches, or losing both, could create a logjam for the final three spots in the tournament.

Nicholls will square off with the Sugar Bears Thursday in Conway at 7 p.m., while the finale against the Lady Demons will begin at 2 p.m.