Cardinals rally for 12-9 win, hand Challengers fifth loss in a row

The Challengers came close to getting their first win against the Bern Cardinals in three tries this season, but in the end, they wound up with a 12-9 loss.

Starter Palatinus tossed three scoreless innings to start the game, but then was roughed up in the fourth and fifth innings. Four hits and an error in the fourth and two hits and a base-on-balls in the fifth turned the score 7-2 in favor of the Cards, and making way for reliever Tobias Siegrist.

The Challengers turned the game around by scoring six times in the bottom of the fifth off Tobias Imboden.

They sent 12 batters to the plate of which eight singled, one walked and one laid down a run-scoring sacrifice bunt.

That put Siegrist in line for the win with an 8-7 lead, but it wouldn't last long. A hit-by-pitch and five singles pushed four runs across the plate in the top of the sixth for an 11-8 lead in favor of the Cards.

Imboden got back to his usual self and retired the side in order in the sixth, and also didn't allow a run in the seventh inning.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Challengers got a run back on Patrick Maier's RBI-single, but that was all they could muster off Imboden. He completed his 13th game in as many starts.

Game notes
Palatinus scored his 400th career run as he came around for the first Challenger run in the second inning. ...The six runs scored in the fifth inning was the Challengers' highest-scoring inning since getting 10 runs off the Zurich Lions on May 7.