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Baseball opens up Southland Conference play on the road with a three-game series against Nicholls State. Game one will be at 6 p.m. in Thibodaux, Louisiana Friday, followed by games two and three on Saturday and Sunday.
The Wildcats will send senior Kyle Carroll (1-1, 0.00 ERA) to the mound for the series opener. In two outings, Carroll has yet to give up an earned run, while all four runs have been unearned. Carroll has gone 12.0 innings pitched, giving up seven hits, four walks and 11 strikeouts for the season.
Head coach Britt Bonneau’s squad sits at 6-3 through the first nine games of the season. The Wildcats come off a four-game split with Boston’s Northeastern University, in which they won both games in Saturdays double-header. The team road strong pitching to 1-0 and 4-3 wins and as a staff, is averaging a 1.66 ERA.
Senior Garrett deMeyere was masterful for the Wildcats in the shutout win. deMeyere went 8.0 innings giving up just three hits and one free pass in his last outing. He’ll start game two of the series with a 2-0 record and a 0.64 earned run average.
The game three starter is expected to be senior left-hander Aaron Mason. Mason (2-0, 1.50 ERA) picked up his second win of the season with a 6.0 inning, five-hit, four-run (two earned), six-strikeout performance against the Huskies.
The Colonels sit at 4-6 and are riding a four-game losing streak. Nicholls State has played top-level competition this season with losses coming against Alabama (13-1), two against no. 20 Mississippi State (5-0 and 8-0) and no. 7 LSU (9-4).
The Wildcats game against the Colonels will be its first of a six-game road trip. ACU lost its only road game of the season so far against Oklahoma in Norman, 7-1. Both teams have posted solid home records. Nicholls State is 4-1 at Ray Didier Field, while ACU has gone 6-2 at The Crutch.
The Colonels are expected to start senior right hander Justin Sinibaldi (1-1, 3.27 ERA). Sinibaldi comes off a 2015 campaign that earned him the Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year Award and a member of the National College Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher of the Year watch list. He went 11-2 last season with a 1.40 ERA while striking out 54 batters and walking just 16 all season longs.
In his only game against ACU last season, Sinibaldi pitched a complete-game shutout while striking out eight Wildcats in a 2-0 win.
Junior Cole Strapler (1-1, 2.13 ERA) will get the star in game two. Strapler got his only win of the season in an 18-2 decision over Mississippi Valley State University, in which he went 6.0 innings, gave up three hits and an earned run and stuck out six.
The Wildcats are led by junior transfer outfielder Braxton Wilks from Sugar Land. Wilks owns a .304 batting average with six runs batted in, five runs scored and two doubles. Freshman first baseman David Ruot is hitting .280, while junior third baseman Aaron Draper leads the team with 12 total bases so far with a .257 average and three doubles.
