Baseball team takes loss in series

The Jaguars started their three game series against Nicholls State in Thibodaux this weekend losing 2-0. On Friday, Nicholls State went on to take a 6-4 victory over the Jaguars by taking advantage of their errors and free passes.
“We wasted a brilliant pitching performance by Chris Donaby,” said Head Coach Roger Cador after his Jaguars fell to 1-3 on the young season. “We didn’t play well,” Cador said, adding that “lack of execution was costly.”
Several state schools were forced to either cancel or postpone baseball and softball games Saturday because of inclement weather. Southern (1-4) and Nicholls State (3-3) will not make up the game that was scheduled to play Saturday at Lee-Hines Field.
Despite a stellar pitching effort from junior pitcher Joshua Kirk, Southern’s offense could not come up with the timely hit, causing the Jaguars to loss 3-2 to Nicholls State on Sunday at Ray E. Didier Field. Kirk pitched 42/3 innings of no-hit ball before giving up a home run to Nicholls’ Michael Roberts in the bottom of the fifth inning. That tied the game at 1-1 after Southern had gotten a second-inning home run by freshmen infielder Stephen Davis. Nicholls scored twice more in the sixth. SU junior reliever Jeremiah Shepard walked two with two outs and pinch-hitter Matt Tucker singled to center to score one with the second scoring on a subsequent wild pitch.
“We wasted a good pitching effort,” Cador said. “My biggest disappointment is the lack of quality at-bats. We had 14 fly-ball outs today.
“I’ve been preaching that we need ground balls at this level to win ball games. We’ve got to get guys out of trying to hit the ball out of the park. We’re not that type of team.”
Southern has been chosen to win the Western Division title in the Southwestern Athletic Conference along with Mississippi Valley for the Eastern Division. In 2005, Southern won their division and the SWAC tournament championship and Mississippi Valley won the East Division.
The Jaguars also had four players to be placed on the 2006 Preseason All-SWAC Baseball team (one 1st team and three second team). Junior infielder Brandon Revis was selected to the first team, while senior pitcher Joshua Kirk, junior infielder Gene Filyaw, Jr., and senior outfielder Darren Clark were all selected as second team selections.