COLORADO SPRINGS – With opportunities in each end of Saturday's doubleheader to get a victory, the Cougars left the state's second most populist city without a win.

A pair of late efforts from UCCS led them to an RMAC baseball sweep in a pair of seven inning contests.

UCCS 9, Colorado Christian 5

Despite giving up the game's first run in the second inning, the Cougars responded by putting up a five-spot on the scoreboard in the third frame. During the scoring outburst, Zayne Willems hit a solo homerun, Sam Gallegos hit and RBI double before a Russell Cruz three-run homerun capped the scoring.

The home team responded with a single run in the bottom half of that same inning but the big blow against the Cougars came in the fourth inning. The home team sent nine men to the plate as they scored five runs on five hits.

Despite trailing 8-5 in the sixth inning after UCCS put another run on the scoreboard in the fifth inning, the Cougars put their first two runners on base to start the stanza. However, the Cougars could not safely get a runner across the plate in an attempt to chip into their deficit. The Mountain Lions scored a single run in the sixth stanza to stretch their lead to four runs and complete the contest's scoring.

Willems had the best offensive contest for the Cougars as the catcher went 3-for-3 with his fourth homerun of the season.

UCCS 7, Colorado Christian 6

While Saturday's opener had a sense of heartbreak with the Mountain Lion, the nightcap left the Cougars wrestling with a gut-punch of a setback.

The game was moving along at a good clip as UCCS held a 2-0 lead after five innings. Both starting pitchers had good stuff working as Connor McCollum registered four strikeouts and worked around four walk and five hits at that point. His counterpart, Christian Manmano, had allowed just three hits and struck out four.

Then the sixth inning happened. The Cougars seemingly took control of the game as they scored six runs.  Before UCCS could record an out, Colorado Christian took the lead. The Cougars put together their runs on six hits and took advantage of an error by the home team.

In the bottom half of the inning the Mountain Lions put three runners on base with just one out but Jarrod Rivera got a pair of flyouts to end the threat.

The top half of the last inning saw the Cougars piece together a pair of hits but they couldn't get a run across the plate. Trailing 6-2, UCCS scored twice before Colorado Christian pulled within one-out of the victory. Yet the home team tied the score when Matt Berg's two-out single scored Walker Rumsey and John Mallon. The winning run came as Matt McDermott crossed the plate on a fielder's choice

UP NEXT: The team's complete their four-game set tomorrow with a single nine-inning game beginning at 12 p.m.