Challengers leave Eagles helpless in 13-1 rout

The Challengers' defense bettered its performance from Game 1, and allowed the Reussbühl Eagles only a single run in a 13-1 victory in Game 2 of Sunday's doubleheader at the Heerenschürli.

	Thomas Landis improved to 7-1 on opening day.

Thomas Landis and Roger Brunner combined on a six-hitter, with Landis picking up the win.

It was his seventh win on opening day in the last 11 seasons.

Landis also allowed the only walk of the game for the Eagles, striking out seven others.

His offense gave him a quiet day from the beginning on, scoring five times in the first inning off starter René Plüss and reliever Mano Steiner.

Bases-loaded walks to Tobias Siegrist and Brunner, a throwing error by first baseman Tom Huston and a wild pitch quickly put the game out of hands for the Eagles.

They scored their only run of the game on an off-target relay throw by right fielder Willy Schaub in the second inning.

The Challengers put up run after run off relievers Steiner and Juan Peralta, leaving the Eagles in awe and disbelief.

With the switch to wood, not many balls were hit out of the park, but the Challengers didn't need the long ball to do the damage.

With most of their big guns like Manny Marchant or Jose Valdez gone, the Challengers combined little hits and timely hitting to collect 13 runs.

Game notes
Anubis Benitez collected his 200th RBI with the Challengers by drawing a bases-loaded walk in the fourth inning. ...Counting back to Game 5 in 2003, Landis has a 21-game hitting streak going. ...Siegrist doubled in his 400th NLA at-bat in the fourth inning. ...The Challengers used four players who either qualified as rookies or as mainly NLB-players until this season to compensate for the departure of Marchant, Valdez, Kurt Kovac, Armin Blickenstorfer">Armin Blickenstorfer and Benny Räber: Thomas Blank, now the regular second baseman after Chris Palatinus' switch to third base, Adrian Kämpfer">Adrian Kämpfer, Chris Hardy and Willy Schaub.