BATON ROUGE, La. – The Nicholls State University baseball team won their opening-weekend series against American East favorite Stony Brook, but that performance was just the opening act for the Colonels who defeated No. 4 Louisiana State University, 6-3 on their home field at Alex Box Stadium on Wednesday night.
Nicholls (3-1) jumped on top early with a
Justin Holt leadoff single. With two outs,
Seth Stevens crushed a double to deep left field, bringing Holt home. The Tigers (3-1) responded, loading the bases, but the Colonels escaped the inning unscathed.
In the third inning,
Joey Morales and
Darius Knight singled before a
Christian Correa sacrifice fly sent the pair home to give Nicholls a 3-0 advantage.
In the fourth frame,
Marc Frazier led off with a double through the left side and came home on a hit by
Tanner Vandevere that put the Colonels up by four.
With two outs in the fifth, Correa was hit by a pitch, forcing a pitching substitution. Immediately after the change, Stevens blasted a triple to right field that brought Correa in for the score. A Frazier single on the next at bat sent Stevens home and gave Nicholls a 6-0 lead.
LSU provided a scare in the sixth, taking advantage of miscues by the Colonels to cut their lead in half. Mark Laird singled to center and advanced to third on consecutive wild pitches. Alex Bregman notched a single that sent Laird in for the score. Conner Hale and Andrew Stevenson added a pair of singles, resulting in two more runs for the Tigers.
The two teams held each other scoreless over the remaining innings and Nicholls came away with the victory over LSU.
The Tigers entered Wednesday's contest ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation by Baseball America, and were tabbed as the No. 4 team by the USA Today Coaches' poll, Collegiate Baseball poll and NCBWA poll after their 3-0 sweep of Kansas on opening weekend.
Righty
Ryan Deemes got the start for the Colonels, tossing four scoreless innings with six strikeouts. Southpaw
Alex Ernestine (1-0) was awarded the win, throwing one inning and allowing just one hit while fanning one LSU batter. Lefty
Stuart Holmes earned his second save of the young season, shutting down the Tigers for no hits with a strikeout in 1.2 innings in relief.
Right-hander Doug Norman (0-1) took the loss for LSU, surrendering five runs (four earned) and nine hits in 4.2 innings.
Stevens led Nicholls offensively, going 2-for-5 with a double, triple, two RBIs and a run scored. Frazier went 2-for-4 on the night with an RBI and a run, while Correa batted 1-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored. The Colonels registered 12 hits on the night with nine different players contributing at least one hit.
Laird paced the Tigers with a 3-for-6 night and a run. Bregman and Hale each notched an RBI and a run on the night, while Stevenson contributed the third RBI.
Nicholls will next travel to Pensacola Florida to take on North Florida, Southern Miss and Troy in the Diamond Cox Invitational. The Colonels will face the Ospreys at 11 a.m. on Friday to open the tournament. All three games will be broadcast live on KNSU 91.5 FM, and Saturday's matchup with the Golden Eagles will air on Cox Sports Television.
Visit geauxcolonels.com for live stats, video and the most up-to-date information on Nicholls baseball.
