LAKE CHARLES, La. - The No. 1 seed Nicholls State University baseball team begins its quest for another Southland title as the Colonels open play in the 2023 SLC Tournament Wednesday night against host and No. 6 seed McNeese at Joe Miller Ballpark. The game is the finale of a tripleheader, with first pitch set for 6 p.m.
All tournament games will be streamed live on ESPN+ and all Colonel games can be listened to on ESPN Radio New Orleans 100.3 FM.
Nicholls (30-22, 15-9 SLC) enters this year's edition of the postseason as the top seed after claiming its first-ever SLC Regular Season Title following last Friday's win at New Orleans. The conference race was the closest in league history, with only three games separating first and seventh place.
McNeese advanced from Tuesday's play-in round after another dominating performance by the league's pitcher of the year, Grant Rogers, who tossed a complete game shutout to eliminate Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The win set up a fifth meeting between the Colonels and Cowboys this season. Nicholls opened conference play with a series victory at McNeese, which ended a drought of 12 consecutive losses to the Cowboys in Lake Charles. McNeese then evened up the season series at 2-2 with a comeback 7-3 victory in a nonconference game on May 9 in Thibodaux.
The Colonels will be making their ninth appearance all-time in the SLC Tournament. Last season, the Red and Gray tied for fourth but every squad made the eight-team tournament field. Nicholls was 1-2 last year with an opening victory against Northwestern State before falling to McNeese and UIW.
The Colonels are 10-14 all-time in the Southland Tournament and won one title in 1998. That year was the lone time Nicholls reached the championship game. Against McNeese, Nicholls is 2-2 all-time with the last matchup going in favor of the Cowboys, 8-4, in last season's SLC Tourney. The Cowboys would advance to the SLC Championship Series but were upset by Southeastern.
Nicholls went 9-9 against the tournament field in league play, winning three series, 2-1, and dropping three by the same count. In fact, no team in the tournament earned a series sweep against anyone in the field.
The Red and Gray posted a league-best .315 batting average in SLC play and had seven of their nine starters in the lineup hit .300 or better.
Xane Washington led the way with a .363 average and also had a team-high 26 RBIs. He,
Edgar Alvarez and
Parker Coddou all were named All-Southland First Team and All-Defensive.
On the mound, Nicholls had a 4.97 team ERA in the SLC and was led by the staff's two all-league selections -- starting pitcher
Jacob Mayers and reliever
Gavin Galy. Mayers went 5-0 in conference play, finishing with a 1.89 ERA and 50 strikeouts. Galy made nine appearances and had a 1.25 ERA with a .162 opponent batting average.
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