The Colorado Christian Cougar baseball team returned to action on Saturday afternoon, returning to All Star Park to take on the UCCS Mountain Lions for games two and three in the four game series. The Cougars dropped game one on Friday after allowing UCCS to complete a late game rally to win 11-8. There would be no rallies by UCCS on Saturday because they wouldn't need them. The Mountain Lions would lead both games wire-to-wire and take both games on the day. The loses bring the Cougars season record to 8-13 (3-8 RMAC) with one more game scheduled against the Mountain Lions on Sunday.  

Game 1:

The first game of the days double-header saw UCCS jump out to a 8-0 lead by the start of the bottom of the fourth inning, a run that included three homers by the Mountain Lions and all eight runs counting as earned. Cougar starting pitcher for the game was hit with his third loss of the season, and six of those eight runs while striking out a pair and walking a pair of UCCS players in just 2 2/3's innings of work.

But after managing only three hits in the first five innings, the Cougar bats finally started to come alive in the bottom of the sixth inning when head coach Gregg Mucerino began experimenting with the line-up to try to find something that might work. The bottom of the inning started off red hot with three straight singles by JC Barrios, Cooper Gray, and Kaleb Johnson, the last of which would bring Barrios in to score for the Cougars, giving them their first run of the game. Immediately following Johnson was Dylan McTague who would launch a no-doubt three run home run over the right field wall to cut the lead in half at 8-4. The Cougars would rack up three outs and one hit in their next four batters to end the inning, but the momentum had shifted.

The Mountain Lions though would answer the Cougars rally with their own display of hitting, and reclaim those four runs they just lost half an inning before, and would increase the lead back to 14-4 in the top of the seventh inning. Three of the four runs would score on bases loaded walk, hit by pitch, and wild pitch.

The Cougars would put up one more run in the bottom of the seventh inning, but it wasn't enough as the game would end after that with a score of 14-5 in favor of UCCS.

Game 2:

The second game of the day saw an original line-up for the Cougars, included many of the substitutions from game one, starting for game two. The Mountain Lions would again jump out to an early lead, going up 5-0 after the first two innings. The first two runs were unearned as a direct result of a CCU error to begin the game and the Mountain Lions capitalized on it. The next three runs came in the top of the second inning on a three run blast with one out soared into the score board in left field where the wind was blowing, though the hit needed no assistance to leave the park.
CCU got back one of those runs in the bottom of the second when Austin Atkerson lifted fly ball to left field that caught that wind that helped what likely would have been a lazy fly ball into a homerun to put the Cougs on the board, still trailing 5-1.

The Mountain Lions would tack on another run in the third inning off of a sac fly to go up 6-1. Between the two teams, there would only be one hit between the bottom of the third inning and the top of the sixth.

The bottom of the sixth saw the Cougars came back to life and score four runs on five hits. Austin Maltby, Kaleb Jonson, Dakota Bayles, and Joel Manzano would all hit the RBI's singles, with the exception of Maltby's hit being a double down the right field line. The rally would unfortunately end after those four runs, and the Cougars would end the inning trailing just 6-5, but having left 2 costly runners on base.

The Mountain Lions would answer back as they have all series and started the top of the seventh inning with a solo home run to go back up 7-5. They would later double and lay down a sac bunt to advance that runner, who would score on a wild pitch to go up 8-5 before ending the half inning.

The Cougars would come back up to bat in the bottom half of the final inning eyeing another four run inning like the one they just had. It started off promising enough with second baseman Hunter Hays working a walk to get on base. Jerry Gallegos would follow by getting on board as a result of an error by UCCS, and Maltby would wear a pitch later on in the inning to load the bases with one out. Luke Bote would ground out to the pitcher, but not before scoring Hays. That run would be all the Cougars would get though, as they fell to UCCS again, this time by a score of 8-6.

The series finale will be played at 1:00 p.m. at All Star Park in Lakewood, CO, on Sunday, March 25^th.