DUDLEY, Mass. (5/6/24) – Beginning Tuesday, the Nichols College Softball team will make their fourth consecutive appearance in the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Championship Tournament. The first batch of games will be held at host Western New England University, who is the conference's second-seed in the tournament.
The afternoon will consist of four teams competing for a spot in the conference championship series on Thursday, May 9
th, hosted by top-seeded Endicott College. The Bison enter the tournament as the No. 3 seed and will face the winner of seventh-seeded University of New England (12-28, 6-10 CCC) and sixth-seeded Suffolk University (18-22, 7-9 CCC), who are competing in the tournament play-in game.
How They Got Here: The third-seeded Bison enter the postseason with a 22-18 overall record, including a 10-6 mark against conference opponents. This season, the Bison swept the Rams at home back on April 13
th, and later split against the UNE on the road on April 28
th.
Who to Watch: From the circle, Nichols has been led by pitching duo of junior
Chelsea Indyk and sophomore
Olivia Pedro, who combined own a 2.75 earned run average, a 16-13 record and 123 strikeouts. The two pitchers have also combined for five shutouts, which included back-to-back performances by Pedro with wins against Clark University (4-0) and Dean College (8-0). Indyk collected Nichols' first win of the season, a shutout, over Ithaca College on March 10
th, where she struck out seven total batters. Among all conference pitchers, Indyk ranks tied for first in saves this season (3).
The Bison have shared the wealth at the plate this season, with sophomore
Allie Silliman entering Tuesday with a team-leading 41 hits on the season, along with batting .323 with 19 RBI. Junior infielder
Erin Gour has been the slugger this year for Nichols with team-leads in batting average (.325), slugging percentage (.581) and on-base percentage (.410), totaling 38 hits with five homers, 11 doubles and three triples. Classmate
Chloe Steiniger ranks first on the team in RBI (29), having also homered four times on 34 hits this season.
First pitch for the Bison will take place at 1:00 PM with live broadcast coverage on the
CCC Sports Network, and an official tournament layout available for viewing
here.
For fans that plan on watching in person, all games will take place at the Golden Bear Softball Park (Formerly known as WNE Softball Field) in Springfield, Massachusetts.
