Challengers use big four-run fifth inning to sweep Dragons

The second game of Sunday's doubleheader against the Geneva Dragons was a much more one-sided affair than Game 1.

	Thomas Landis picked up his second win of the season.

Again, the Challengers combined great pitching and solid hitting, and the lackluster Dragon defense did the rest to give the Challengers a well-deserved 8-2 win.

The Dragon scored first as pitcher Thomas Landis couldn't handle Didier Rieder's bunt, enabling Richard Kurz to score the first run of the game.

Landis' error was the only mistake by a Challenger in the doubleheader.

But Landis answered promptly with his bat in the bottom half of the inning, knocking in Anubis Benitez with an RBI-single.

The Dragons then wasted a big opportunity in the next inning by killing their rally all by themselves.

With two outs, they loaded the bases on a double and two walks. With former French National Team pitcher Gisbert standing on first base, catcher Tobias Siegrist fired a pickoff throw to first, freezing Gisbert for the third out.

	Besides Tobi Siegrist, Patrick Zöllig was the only player with two hits in the game.

They again managed to load the bases in the next inning on two singles and a walk, but again didn't manage to cash in.

Ballis grounded out to rookie second baseman Oliver Labhart to end the threat.

The Challengers, on the other hand, didn't waste any chance to jump on starter Gisbert, getting an RBI-double from Chris Palatinus and a run-scoring ground out from Landis to take a 3-1 lead after three frames.

Two errors by the Dragons in the next inning led to yet another run, but the worst was still to come.

With two outs, and runners at third and second, the Dragons completely fell apart and threw away the game.

Harry Bregy grounded into what seemed to be the inning-ending fielder's choice to third base, but Raphael Ferry hesitated and made a bad throw home, enabling Palatinus to score an unearned run.

After a walk to Manuel Schretzmann, Adrian Kämpfer">Adrian Kämpfer hit again a possible inning-ending ground ball to third, but substitute second baseman Matthias Audeoud non-chalantly dropped third baseman Ferry's throw, further prolonging the inning.

One more run scored on Patrick Zöllig's RBI-single, his second hit of the game.

No more runs scored in the final two innings.

The game took just 2:10 to complete.

Game notes
Benitez scored two runs, tying Enrico Zingg with 298 career runs for second on the alltime list. He also doubled in the first inning, giving him 501 total bases with the Challengers. ...Palatinus' double in the third inning was his 750th at-bat in the NLA.