Fries strikes out 14, beats Challengers 12-4

Severin Fries stymied the Challengers in Game 2 of Saturday's doubleheader by striking out 14 and allowing only a single earned run to score for a 12-4 win.

	Severin Fries mastered the Challengers and struck out 14 of them in his complete game.

Fries struck out the side in the first, fourth and seventh innings, and had only one inning where he struck out none. He struck out six Challengers twice, and Harry Bregy was the only one who didn't strike out the entire game.

The Challengers again scored first on Chris Palatinus' steal home on the front end of a double steal.

But starter Benny Räber never found his rhythm and walked two, hit two batsmen and gave up a single in just 1-3 innings of work. He was relieved after pitching to just six batters and recording just a single out, his shortest outing since pitching 1 inning against the Therwil Flyers in Game 4 of the 1999 Playoff Finals.

Thomas Landis, who pitched a complete game in Game 1, came on and pitched the next 3 2-3 innings, allowing five runs - three of them unearned - on four hits, one walk and also striking out eight.

The Challengers' bats remained silent against Fries' masterful outing and trailed 7-1 after five innings before Tobias Siegrist's RBI-single drove in the second run for the Challengers.

Anubis Benitez took over on the mound for the Challengers, and he retired the side in the bottom of the fifth.

The Cardinals slumped in the top of the sixth inning and committed two errors that allowed the Challengers to score two unearned runs off Fries to cut the Cards' lead to 7-4.

But the Cards jumped on Benitez in the bottom half of the inning, and scored five times on four hits, a walk and two hit by pitches for the final score of 12-4.

Game notes
Thomas Landis completed his 600th Inning Pitched in the NLA by getting Ron Zimmermann to fly out in the fourth inning. ...Palatinus singled in the first inning for his 300th Total Base in the NLA, and then struck out in his 500th NLA at-bat in the second inning. ...The loss was the first by the Challengers against the Cardinals since Game 1 of the 1999 Playoff Semifinals on August 28, 1999.