Castillo's two-run triple puts Flyers up 2-1

The Therwil Flyers push the Challengers to the brink of elimination by taking Game 3 5-1 for a 2-1 lead in the Best-of-5 Series.

David Castillo delivered the big hit as he plated two runners with his triple in the fifth inning with two outs.

Lukas Croton of the Flyers pitched a complete game, scattering six hits and allowing only a single earned run en route to his first win in this year's Playoffs. Ianis Bouteloup was the only player of the game with two hits as he went 2-for-4 and scored two runs.

Starter Ryan Byrne had trouble with plate umpire John Baum's interpretation of the strike zone and walked a batter in each inning except the seventh. He wound up with the loss, allowing five runs on seven hits and seven walks, while also striking out 10.

The Flyers stranded six runners in the first four innings without scoring, while the Challengers got to Croton in the top of the fourth as Byrne scored on Jesus Martinez' RBI-single up the middle.

The Flyers rallied in the bottom of the fifth on Sven Leemann's RBI-single, followed by Castillo's big hit two batters later for a 3-1 lead.

The Flyers added an insurance run in the sixth on Hideori Oshima's sacrifice fly, and yet another one in the eighth on Takanobu Oshima's RBI-single.

In the meantime, the Challengers wasted several scoring opportunities, getting runners in scoring position, but then failing to execute again and again. They finished going 2-for-10 with RISP.

Game notes
Byrne struck out at least 10 batters in a game for the ninth time in 11 starts this season. His strikeouts total now stands at 174, six short of the single season record of 180 set by the Bern Cardinals' Severin Fries in 1999. …The Challengers' top five in the lineup each had a hit as they went 5-for-19, while the bottom four went 1-for-11. ...Tobias Siegrist was the 4'000th Challenger to strike out in history.