Challengers return to Finals

The Challengers qualified for the Playoff Finals by continuing to dominate the Sissach Frogs.

By beating their opponents 10-1 to take the best-of-3 Playoff Semifinals Series, the Challengers won five of seven confrontations this season.

The Frogs have lost just two other games this season, once against the Bern Cardinals and once against the Zurich Barracudas.

On the other hand, the Challengers lived up to their reputation of being a strong Playoff team. For already the third time in the last six seasons, the Challengers have eliminated the winner of the regular season in the Playoffs.

The latest success story is written by a rookie: Thomas Burger pitched eight brilliant innings, giving up only a single run on just four hits and eight walks, while also striking out a career-high seven batters.

And all this against a lineup that sported a batting average of .287 this year, 32 points higher than the Challengers' .255.

But it all didn't start that promising as he loaded the bases with three consecutive walks in the first inning, but managed to get out of the jam.

He then retired all six batters he faced in the second and third innings.

In the bottom half of the third, the Challengers scored the first runs of the game on Saentis Zeller's RBI-double and Tobias Siegrist's two-run double over center fielder Stefan Wick's head.

The Frogs then wasted two more runners in scoring position with one out in the top of the fourth, and the Challengers continued to feast on the Frogs' pitching staff.

Claudio Heim left the mound in the bottom of the fourth as he surrendered one more run on three walks and a single, giving way to reliever Johnny Bassett.

He shut the door in that inning, but was tagged for three more runs in the next inning.

None of those runs were earned as third baseman Daniel Traina threw away Anthony Bennett's grounder, enabling Chris Palatinus to hit an RBI-double, Harry Bregy to lay down a run-scoring sacrifice bunt and Oliver Labhart to line an RBI-single into left field for a big 7-0 lead.

Burger walked two more batters in the top of the sixth, but a 5-3 double play rescued his head.

After leading off the bottom half of the inning by giving up back-to-back singles to Patrick Zöllig and Zeller, the Frogs brought on Daniel Traina to stop the bleeding.

But he let both inherited runners score on a single and a throwing error by shortstop Brandon Neal.

Yet another throwing error by substitue catcher Ivano Piaia in the next inning allowed the Challengers to score the tenth run.

In the meantime, Burger was flirting with a shutout, mainly thanks to his great performance, but also because of one of the best showings of a Challenger defense in a long time.

The defense committed no errors for the third time this season, helping Burger's cause.

But in the eighth inning, Wick led off with a ground-rule double over the left field fences, and eventually scored on Alessandro Traina's single for the only run.

Coach Bennett then brought on reliever Willy Schaub to pitch the final inning, and he retired the side in order to send the Challengers to their sixth Finals appearance in the last eight season.

Game notes
Anubis Benitez grounded out to shortstop Bassett in the second inning in his 800th NLA at-bat with the Challengers. ...Palatinus scored his 300th run in the NLA as he crossed the plate in the fifth inning. In the sixth inning he grounded out in his 900th NLA at-bat. ...Bregy collected his 100th walk in the NLA by getting four balls by Heim in the fourth inning. ...Schaub appeared for only the third time this season on the mound.