Eagles concede after 3 1/2 innings due to injuries

The injury-plagued Reussbühl Eagles couldn't overcome their problems and had to forfeit the game after 3 1/2 innings, running out of players.

	Chris Palatinus hit his team-leading fifth double of the season in the first inning.

It looked though as if the Eagles could produce an upset as they led off the game with four runs off starter Patrick Zöllig.

Alston Brooks hit an RBI-double and René Plüss hit a towering three-run homer for a quick 4-0 lead.

But Anubis Benitez led off the game for his team with his third homer of the day to set the Challengers' pace for the second game.

The next three batters reached on two doubles and a single, and all three scored to knot the game at 4-4 after the first frame.

	Armin Blickenstorfer">Armin Blickenstorfer had just one hit, but stole his first base of the season, and 30th of his NLA-career.

But the Eagles weren't impressed as they scored four more in the top of the next inning, getting a run-scoring ground out from Stephan Bhend, yet another RBI-double by Brooks, followed by Enz' second homer of the day.

That finished Zöllig's day on the mound after just retiring four of the 14 batters he faced. All eight runs he gave up were earned to inflate his ERA to a whopping 29.03 in 3 1-3 innings pitched this season.

Jose Valdez took over and got Plüss to hit an easy grounder to third baseman Manny Marchant. But he booted the ball for his fourth error of the year.

But that error just set up the 6-4-3 double play Müller hit into as the next batter to end the inning.

Trailing 8-4, the Challengers switched into a higher gear and sent 13 batters to the plate in the bottom half of the inning. Six of them reached via a walk, two of them got on on errors by the infield, Roger Brunner and Valdez hit RBI-singles, and Benitez hit a two-run double. It was only his second double of the year after setting a team record last year by hitting 26.

Valdez shut out the Eagles over the next two innings, and his offense continued to produce two more runs on RBI-singles by Armin Blickenstorfer and Thor Thoresen for a comfortable 15-8 lead.

The Eagles led off the fourth inning with two singles, but it was obvious that Bhend played with too much pain, and having another injured player, the Eagles called it quit to give the Challengers a prefect 4-0 season sweep.

Game notes
Benitez popped out to first in the third inning in his 400th NLA at-bat with the Challengers. ...Every Challenger had at least one hit, and Chris Palatinus remained the only Challenger without an RBI, extending his RBI-less drought to eight games.