The Challengers already knew that the trip to the foot of Mount Pilatus would not be a tourist excursion. The young team from Zurich fought hard, but had to return home with two losses against the Lucerne Eagles.
The guests got off to a good start. Florin Kämpfer opened the score with an RBI single in the first inning and Philip Louis increased the lead to 2-0 with an RBI groundout in the third inning. But the Eagles slowly started to pick up speed. In the third frame the Zurich defense managed to at least keep the tie, but in the fourth inning the home team pulled away with five hits to make it 8-2. The Challengers fought back and cut the deficit twice to three runs in the fifth and again in the sixth inning thanks to an RBI single from Jacob van Meulebrouck and a 2-run home run from Samuel Rodriguez Bautista. In the end it was not enough. The Central Swiss team ultimately won with 16-8.
The second game was similar to the first one. The Challengers were once again the first to get on the scoreboard, but soon had to let the Eagles overtake them. This time, however, because the Zurich team made a few errors. But Joseph Stotz and Nick Lehmann kept their team in the game with two RBIs to make it 3-5 in the fourth frame. But the Eagles scored another four runs to seal the deal. The Challengers lost with a score of 5-10, but were able to take home some positive things as well.

The NLB-Teams of the Zurich Challengers and the Zurich Barracudas fought a wild double header on Saturday. 56 runs, 50 hits, 40 walks and 27 errors are impressive numbers for 14 innings played. And in the end there was a win for both teams.
The start of the first game already gave an idea of where things could lead. The Challengers’ young guard gave them a 5-0 lead. Noam Müller, Jack Siemers, Florin Kampfer, Jordi Bucher and, on a wild pitch, Andreas Rüdisühli provided the runs. But after the first inning it was 5-5. The game went wild with several twists, turns and confusions. After five innings the game was tied at 17-17. Then the Challengers benefited from three errors by the Barracudas and took the lead once again with 20-17. Joseph Stotz took over as pitcher for the Challengers and stepped the bleeding. Apart from an RBI triple, he didn’t let any Barracudas runner score, so the Challengers were able to celebrate a memorable 20-18 victory. Florin Kampfer went 4-for-4 with 4 RBI, while Samuel Rodríguez Bautista, Thomas Landis, Juan Francisco Robles and Andreas Rüdisühli each had two hits.
And there was little missing for the Challengers to have followed up with a second win. The guests led 5-4 until the sixth inning. This was mainly thanks to four runs in the second inning, when the Challengers took a 4-2 lead with an RBI-single from Adderly Sarmiento, an RBI from Andreas Rüdisühli and a 2-run double from Honey Gigato Romero. But the Barracudas scored nine runs on nine hits in the sixth inning and took Game 2 by a score of 13-5. Honey Gigato Romero led the offense with three hits, while Adderly Sarmiento and Jack Siemers each delivered two hits.

The NLB-Team keeps up well with the strong Hünenberg Unicorns, but has a bad third inning in both games, the burden of which is too heavy.
The Central Swiss team is launching a new NLB-Team in the 2024 season. The Unicorns added a lot of quality so that they should be able to finish in the upper half of the standings. Nevertheless the Challengers held up well for long stretches. The reason for the two defeats was the third inning on both occasions. In the first game, the Unicorns erupted for nine runs for a 12-0 lead. But the home team showed good fighting spirit and scored six unanswered runs to make it 6-12. In the second game the Unicorns again pulled ahead in the third with seven runs to 10-2. Ultimately they won 13-3. The Challengers undoubtedly have room for improvement on offense. In both games they only managed a total of four hits.