Challengers place four bombs, still lose 18-14 to Unicorns

After a half-hour delay, the Challengers and Hunenberg Unicorns finally were able to start their game.

The reason for the delay was the no-show of the Submarines' umpires that led to the umpiring of two Challenger staff members plus a player from the Unicorns.

The Challengers put their first run on the board on Tobias Siegrist's solo homer with two outs in the first inning.

But the Unicorns scored five runs off starter Patrick Zöllig in the next two innings while Unicorn starter Kägi was in command over the Challengers' offense.

After the Challengers managed to score two more in the third inning on Oliver Labhart's solo homer, his first of the season, and Patrick Bosshard's RBI-double, Zöllig lost it in the bottom half of the inning and gave up three walks and a single that finished his day. He was relieved by Bosshard who walked the first batter he faced with the bases loaded before inducing Hegglin to ground into a fielder's choice for the first out of the inning.

But Scott Newman also drew a walk and Von Ah singled to load the bases.

Muoser, who struck out the inning before with the bases loaded, profited from his second chance and blasted the ball over the fences for a grand slam homer to put his team up 13-3.

The Challengers were able to bounce back and scored nine times in the next inning to come within 13-12.

Thomas Blank, appearing in the first game for the Challengers this year, led off the inning with yet another solo homer. Zöllig and Bosshard had a two-run single each, and the Challengers also profited from four errors by the Unicorn defense.

Tobias Siegrist relieved Bosshard to start the bottom half of the fourth inning, and he managed to blank the Unicorns for the first time in the game.

But his offense was also shut down in the fifth inning to keep the score at 13-12.

The Unicorns then scored two unearned runs off Siegrist to pull away at 15-12, and the Challengers answered with just a single run in the sixth inning on Blank's RBI-single.

The Challengers weren't able to put serious damage on reliever Steiger and the only offensive highlight in the final three innings for the Challengers was Siegrist's second solo homer of the game. It was his third of the season and tied him with Benny Räber for the NLB-lead. He also increased his batting average to .435, only 4 points behind batting average leader Bosshard.

The NLB-team will play its season finale on Thursday evening against the Zurich Lions who are currently second in the standings with a record of 9-3.

The Challengers are assured of 3rd place even if they lose to the Lions. They would finish with an 8-6 record to tie the Chur Braves, but the Challengers won both regular season games against them.