THIBODAUX, La. – After winning the series against Houston Baptist over the weekend, the Nicholls State University baseball team opens its home schedule on Wednesday night, hosting the Southern Jaguars at 6:30 p.m. at Ray E. Didier Field in Thibodaux.

The game on Wednesday will be the first of five straight games at home for the team over the course of the next week, with a three-game home series beginning on Friday and midweek game next Tuesday. Fans in attendance will see another new feature to the ballpark this season, as the dugouts were sunken and completely rebuilt to add more space and amenities for the teams.

The Colonels rallied from a 9-0 shutout on Friday to post back-to-back wins over the Huskies in Houston, winning a season-opening series for the first time since the 2009 season. Nicholls combined to score 24 runs on 23 hits in the final two games, as the pitching staff gave up just seven combined runs to close out the series against HBU.

Exploding for 15 runs in the finale, the Colonels scored double-digit runs for the first time since May of last season, in a year where Nicholls won nine games when scoring ten or more in a contest. The bulk of those runs were driven in by senior shortstop Ray Eureste, who drove in six on 4-of-5 at the plate while scoring twice. Eureste and Matt Richard each finished with five hits on the weekend, as Richard had two triples in the series and three stolen bases.

With such a young group of pitchers on the roster this season, the Nicholls coaching staff wasted little time getting the newcomers acclimated to in-game action, as a total of nine pitchers all finished the weekend with at least one complete inning of work. Taylor Byrd earned the win in his first Division I start, while Kory Delange improved his career record to 4-0 after going five complete innings giving up three runs, one earned with four strikeouts. Jordan McCoy showed virtually no signs of rust in his two appearances, two innings of scoreless, hitless action, while Zach Thiac also made two appearances, with four innings of scoreless time with four strikeouts.

Thiac looks poised to take the bump against Southern on Wednesday, as the Colonels renew a rivalry that goes back decades. The Jaguars come into the game also sporting a 2-1 record after defeating Stillman College over the weekend in Baton Rouge. The Jaguars hit .339 as a team during the series which is second in the Southwestern Athletic Conference after the first weekend of play, scoring over five runs in each contest. On the other side, the Southern pitching staff has an earned run average of 5.33, ballooning after giving up 13 runs to Stillman in the game on Saturday.

First pitch for the game is set for 6:30 p.m. in Thibodaux.