Challengers advance to Playoffs with 16-8 win over Barracudas

The Challengers kind of took revenge for last weekend's loss against the Zürich Barracudas in the Swiss Cup Finals by beating them 16-8 in Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader at the Heerenschürli.

	Manny Marchant hit two homers and collected five RBI's.

Thomas Landis pitched 5 1-3 innings en route to his seventh win of the season, and Manny Marchant belted two homers and collected a game-high five RBI's, and unexpected power source Patrick Zöllig ripped his first career grand slam.

Landis (7-1), starting his 100th game in the NLA, had a rough start before settling down and cruising to an easy victory.

He allowed four runs in the first inning on James Sanders' RBI-single and Nderim Coma's three-run homer.

It was the Barracudas' only homer of the game while the Challengers went on to hit four.

The Challengers managed to get within one run in the bottom half of the first inning on a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch to Kurt Kovac and Tobias Siegrist's two-run double.

It was Siegrist's first extra-base hit since June 28.

But the home team added five more in the next inning, with four runs alone coming off Marchant's second career grand slam homer.

The Barracudas still had starter Coma on the mound as the Challengers started an offensive firework in the fourth inning.

Zöllig hit his grand slam homer to dead center, Landis added a three-run homer of his own, and Marchant chased Coma with his second homer of the game.

It was Marchant's fifth multi-homer game of his career.

In came Juan Francisco-Robles to end the inning, but not before issuing another walk to Chris Palatinus, his third of the game.

After that, the game lost its appeal and the two teams finished the game by scoring only three more runs in the final five half-innings.

The Barracudas got to Landis in the top of the sixth inning, and he was relieved by closer Marchant.

He quickly struck out Coma for the second out of the inning, but right fielder Chris Hardy misplayed Robles' pop-up behind first base, enabling the Cudas to score two unearned runs.

But that was all the Challengers allowed, ending the game with a 16-8 win.

The Challengers have now qualified themselves for the Playoffs, while the Barracudas still need at least one more win to have a slight chance.

Game notes
Marchant hit his only other grand salami on June 3, 2000 against the now defunct Richterswil Athletics. ...Landis set a new game high by hitting five batters with a pitch. He also held the old record with four hit-by-pitches in a single game. ... Anubis Benitez ended his 16-game hitting streak as he went 0-for-2 with three walks.