After various game cancellations due to weather, the 1st League-Team also played its first game of the season. The schedule for Saturday was just right for the Challengers, so that several juniors who were victorious with the U15-Cadets during the day could also take part in the night game in the Heerenschürli ballpark against the Zurich Barracudas. The Challengers showed a strong performance, but ran out of energy shortly before the finish line. In the end it was a bitter defeat after extra innings.

The Challengers built a 12-7 lead by halftime. In the second inning, Ben Dickow and Fabrizio Bucher scored two 2-run doubles for a 6-2 lead. The guests immediately gave this away, but they immediately regained their lead as well. Jacob van Meulebrouck and Jordi Bucher turned a 6-7 into a 8-7 lead in the third inning and with the bases loaded in the fourth inning, van Meulebrouck again, Tyler Smith, Niilo Benz and Ben Dickow extended the lead to 12-7. And the C’s were still ahead by four runs before the last inning. But the Barracudas were able to make up for the deficit in extremis with three hits and three errors from the Challengers defense to tie the game at 12-12. And while the Challengers didn’t bring their runners home in the extra inning, the Barracudas scored the winning run on two wild pitches to make it 13-12.

Fabrizio Bucher led the offense with three hits, Ben Dickow had two doubles and three RBI, Tyler Smith had two hits and Jacob van Meulebrouck scored three runs for the Challengers.