THIBODAUX, La. – Winners of six of its last nine conference games, the Nicholls State University softball team will look to stay in contention for the postseason as the Colonels head to Lake Charles for a three-game series against first-place McNeese State.
 
Friday's single game is scheduled for 6 p.m. with Saturday's doubleheader slated for 1 p.m.  Live stats for all three contests will be available on geauxcolonels.com.
 
Nicholls (16-28, 6-10) claimed a 2-1 series victory over Southeastern Louisiana last weekend, winning games one and two. The Colonels rallied back from a 4-0 deficit in Sunday's finale, but the Lady Lions scored in the top of the seventh to avoid the sweep.
 
Since the start of conference play, the Colonel bats have woken up as the team is posting a .303 batting average in Southland games, which ranks fourth in the league. Freshman Taylor Terrio leads all players with a .519 conference batting average and is fourth in slugging percentage at .685. Terrio and second baseman Danielle Phillips carry 13-game on-base streaks into the series.
 
In the series against SLU, Nicholls hit .402 with four doubles and two home runs. Terrio had six of the hits while Brittany Marcet, Caitlyn Carroll and Haley Parkerson had five each. Marcet paces the team with 29 RBIs and is second on the team in batting average on the year with a .313 mark, and Terrio leads the team at .397.
 
The Colonels continue to use freshman Jackie Johnson and sophomore Hannah Haydel as starters in the circle, with Morgan Skinner seeing time out of the bullpen. Johnson needs one more win for double digits, posting a 9-13 record with a team-best 122 strikeouts. Haydel recorded her fourth win of the season after carrying a no-hitter into the final inning of the Colonels' 8-0 win over Southeastern.
 
McNeese (30-12, 13-4) heads into the series in first place, led by its pitching staff with a Southland-best 1.86 ERA. Jamie Allred anchors the Cowgirls with a 19-6 record, a 1.51 ERA and 158 strikeouts. Rachel Smith also has double digit starts in the circle, compiling a 6-3 record with a 1.71 ERA.
 
Alanna DiVittorio and Lauren Langner lead the offense, batting .398 and .377, respectively. Each has 21 RBIs on the year, and Ashley Modzelewski has a team-high 40 runs driven in to go along with a .318 average. As a team, the Cowgirls are batting .284 while their opposition is hitting just .213.
 
The Cowgirls swept the rain-shortened season-finale last year in Thibodaux by winning two games, 2-0 and 5-2. McNeese has won six of the last seven meetings, with the Colonels lone win coming in 2012 in Lake Charles.