THIBODAUX, La. – The Nicholls State University baseball team steps out of conference play on Tuesday night, traveling to face the South Alabama Jaguars at 6:30 p.m. in Mobile.

The game can be heard live on KTIB 640 AM in Thibodaux, and on the internet at ThibodauxOnline.com. A link to live stats of the game, provided by South Alabama, will be on the front page of GeauxColonels.com, with periodic updates from the Nicholls twitter account at twitter.com/colonelsports.

Nicholls looks to give the nod to junior Brandon Jackson, who will be making his second start of the season on Tuesday, going up against South Alabama's Andrew Fonzi. Jackson currently has an ERA of 5.84 this season in five appearances with ten strikeouts to six walks. Fonzi will counter with a 3.75 ERA and a 1-0 record in 12 innings pitched in three starts.

For the second time in as many weeks the Colonels will be coming off of a weekend sweep, this time at the hands of the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders who outscored the Colonels 17-3 over the course of the three-game series. The losses dropped Nicholls to 15-18 on the season and 1-8 in league play, tied with Northwestern State for last place in the Southland Conference standings.

Nicholls has seen its recent streak of bad luck continue over the last week, as senior outfielder Matt Richard's back troubles flared up forcing him to miss his first start of the season, although the speedy fielder did come in late in the finale on Sunday to pinch run. Along those same lines, junior shortstop Leo Vargas re-aggravated a lingering elbow injury in his throwing elbow, while being down to just Cody Dufrene at the catcher position after injuries to reserves.

The biggest culprit of the weekend was the numerous amounts of opportunities the Colonels were unable to capitalize on with runners on base. Nicholls stranded 30 runners during the series against the Islanders, including 15 in the 13-1 loss in the opener on Friday which were the most since stranding 16 against Southeastern Louisiana. That proved to be costly in the final two games, as the club lost by identical 2-1 scores.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi scored ten of their 17 runs in the first three innings of the series, as the Colonels are 4-11 on the season when the opponent scores first and 1-5 in games where the opposing side scores in the very first inning.

No Nicholls player had more than four hits over the weekend, but did get some solid numbers out of Seth Stevens, Keith Cormier and Brandon Jackson.

Although he has only appeared in 27 games, Stevens has come alive during conference play hitting .414 at the plate with 12 hits and six RBI. Overall, the freshman is hitting .272 with 11 RBI and runs scored.

Keith Cormier continues to lead the team at the plate with a .336 average which is 12th in the conference. The junior outfielder currently has the longest current hitting streak on the team at five games, while also reaching base safely in 11 straight contests.

While seeing multiple starts at different positions, Jackson is on a tear as of late hitting .450 in his last five games. While also working on the mound, the junior has also given opposing pitchers fits as he has nine hits, three four doubles, and slugging .600 during that time.

Outside of the Friday game, the Nicholls pitching staff had a combined ERA over five for the series, even with the solid performances by Taylor Byrd and Kory Delange. All three Nicholls starters took losses on the weekend for the first time this season, as Jordan McCoy held batters at bay with two strong performances allowing just one hit in 3.2 innings with seven strikeouts to just two walks.

South Alabama has continued to roll this season, entering the series finale against the Colonels with a 24-9 overall record. The Jaguars are 15-3 at home at Stanky Field in Mobile, while being just a game out of first place in the Sun Belt with a 7-5 record.

Nicholls fell in the opener to South Alabama 11-7 on March 5 in Thibodaux, with the Jaguars owning a 31-14 all-time series mark against the Colonels.