By Hunt Palmer
A seven-game road stretch for LSU continues Tuesday night in Thibodaux.
For the second time this season, LSU and Nicholls will match up. The first attempt at a game on the bayou was postponed due to cold and wet conditions on February 19. Instead, Nicholls visited Baton Rouge on February 24 when the Tigers won 13-3.
The Tigers travel to Nicholls Tuesday night for an in-state battle! pic.twitter.com/STcQ96SCVm
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) April 7, 2025
Last time LSU made the trek to Thibodaux, the Colonels won a 4-2 contest in February of 2020.
LSU has won all 10 midweek games this season, six by run rule. The Tigers head to Auburn this weekend.
Nicholls has struggled this year. They’re just 1-7 in midweek games and 12-20 overall. The lone midweek win did come their last time out when they beat a ranked Southern Miss team 8-5 in Biloxi.
FIRST TIME AROUND
It was a Monday night matchup between the Tigers and Colonels last time these two met up. William Schmidt got the Tigers off to a great start with 4.2 innings of solid work. He allowed two runs, one earned, and struck out three without a walk.
LSU got home runs from Jared Jones and Steven Milam as well as a trio of big innings, four in the first, five in the fifth and three more in the seventh, to coast to an easy win.
SIZZLING STARTS
LSU is manhandling midweek opponents in the first inning. In total, the Tigers have outscored their midweek counterparts 35-6 in the first.
That includes a nine-run outburst on UL-L, 7-0 leads on Xavier and North Dakota State, and a 4-0 edge on Louisiana Tech last week.
The top of the order with Derek Curiel, Jared Jones and Daniel Dickinson is a handful for these overmatched staffs.
RPI REVIEW
Over the course of 56 games, Tuesday’s contest with Nicholls won’t be all that significant assuming the Tigers play the last six weeks the way they’ve played the first eight.
That said, it’s always a beauty contest come Memorial Day.
Road contests help the RPI more than they hurt it. Wins get a little bump. Losses don’t hurt as badly. Nicholls is currently No. 181 in the RPI, so today this will play as a Quadrant 3 game for LSU as of today. It’s the only midweek game truly on the road for the Tigers, and adding a fairly cheap road win to the ledger won’t hurt.
PITCHING PLANS
LSU only used five arms over the weekend, so it stands to reason that Jay Johnson will want to get several arms out there on Tuesday night. Jaden Noot has done a great job getting LSU off to quality starts. In starts against UNO and UL-L, he worked a total of seven innings and only allowed two earned runs. With the way LSU is swinging the bats, that will get it done.
Perhaps he throws the three-plus innings he worked in those two games, but Johnson knows that seven innings is at least a possibility, so he may hook Noot more quickly, assuming Noot gets the ball.
William Schmidt, Conner Ware and Mavrick Rizy have been the arms Johnson and Nate Yeskie are trying to get innings. Connor Benge is generally the man called upon to dance out of a little trouble if and when it arises.
Once again, Casan Evans and Zac Cowan are unlikely to appear after extended workloads in Oklahoma.
With a traditional Friday-Sunday series coming up this week, Johnson has the ability to stretch an arm if he’d like.
First pitch from Ben Meyer Diamond and Ray Didier Field is set for 6:30 and can be streamed on ESPN+. You can also listen on WDGL 98.1 FM, the LSU flagship, in Baton Rouge.
