Thirteen runs in 14 innings were enough to give Spanish Springs a split Saturday at McQueen in High Desert League prep baseball action. McQueen took the opener of the twin bill 6-2, but Spanish Springs bounced back to take the second game 11-8.

The road split coupled with the Cougars' home win Thursday gave the SSHS-nine a 2-games-to-1 win of the season series against the Lancers.

The Cougars scored early in the first game of the doubleheader, posting two runs in their first at-bat. Adam Miller singled and Cody Nickovich reached on an error. Both wound up coming back across the plate to get the two early runs.

Unfortunately for Spanish Springs fans, their Cougars failed to score in the rest of the game.

McQueen pulled into a 2-2 tie in the bottom of second inning. Jeffrey Surina singled and Tyler York walked. Both circled the sacks and scored.

McQueen (4-14, 1-8 4A North) went on to score three more runs in the fifth inning and another in the sixth to take control. Ben Conway scored the sixth run for McQueen with a solo home run and the Lancers garnered their first league win of the season.

Spanish Springs must have used the first game to get its bats warmed up. The Cougars looked like a much better offensive club in Game 2. They took advantage of their 11 runs to grab the win, banging out 14 hits in the process.

"I think we got a couple extra key hits with guys on base," Cougars coach Mike Bosco said. "In the first game, we had a lead and didn't get those key hits. We had guys in situations where we could've score runs and we didn't come up with that key hit. They ended up coming back and beating us."

In the top of the first inning in Game 2, Adam Miller stepped up to the plate to face McQueen's Andrew Gustin. He greeted the MHS hurler by taking a swing at the first pitch he saw. He smashed it over the fence, giving the Cougars an almost immediate lead. Nickovich followed and reached on a single. Tony Robinson's double sent him home. Josh Viviano showed up Miller with a two-run homer, giving the Cougars four runs on four hits in the first.

The Cougars’ lead got pushed to 6-0 after the top of the second. Gustin walked Masten to start off the top of the second. Masten stole second base and scored on a Garrett Moore single. Miller sent a shot toward second and reached second base on an error. Soon after, Moore scored on a passed ball.

In the second inning, McQueen's Phil Sacks got a base knock, sending the baseball over Nickovich at shortstop. Conway reached on an error which allowed Sacks to score McQueen's first run of the game. Anthony Platt hit a sacrifice fly and sent Conway home. Derek Martindale followed with a single and took second base to get in scoring position for a single by Ethan Wilson. That left Spanish Springs with a 6-3 lead.

The Cougars maintained their three-run lead lead as they headed into the fifth frame. Nickovich led off the inning and was hit by a pitch from McQueen's third pitcher of the game, Matt McMahon. Nickovich stole second and Derrek Doutre reached on a dropped fly ball in left field to set up Josh Viviano. Viviano then hit a line drive between second and third and collected two RBIs. The sequence forged the Cougars into an 8-3 edge.

Moore singled to start off the Spanish Springs sixth. He advanced to second on a bunt by Miller. Nickovich got his third hit of the game and plated Moore. Nickovich and Doutre, who singled, also returned home to score the final two runs of the series for SSHS.

The Lancers pushed across a run in the sixth and four in the seventh to account for the final margin.

“They came back again and it was our ability to score with runners in scoring position early to get us the win today,” Bosco said. “They (McQueen) battled in the seventh inning. They came back, they had the tying run at the plate. They were down seven runs in that seventh inning. If we didn't score those key hits earlier we would've been in trouble.”

Bosco was pleased with the way his pitching staff performed. AJ Masten worked all seven innings but was saddled with a loss in Game 1. Justin Fronberg worked six-plus innings in Game 2 to pick up the win.

“Starting pitching has been a pretty good point for us, a strong point,” Bosco said. “We got done telling the pitchers our pitching staff is good enough to get us to the playoffs but that alone isn't going to do it.

“We need our guys to hit and score runs consistently and play defense. Right now we're not doing that on a regular basis. We need to improve at defense and be more consistent at the plate.”

Spanish Springs (8-3, 5-1 HDL) starts its next series against at home Thursday against Galena. First pitch is set for 3:30 p.m.

Bosco said his squad will do a lot of batting practice over the next week to get geared up for the Grizzlies.

“We're not going to change anything,” he said. “We do the same thing week in and week out.”