Eagles 0, Challengers 13

After dropping both games the weekend before to Embrach - which made 3 straight losses, and 4 out of their last 6 games played dating back to last season, the Challengers looked to get back on track against former First League entry Luzern. While Game 1 was a return to dominance of sorts, the team took a huge step back in blowing the second game to fall to 1-3 on the season.

Game 1 was all Challengers, more specifically, all Oli Christen. After having helped gack away the game in his last start due to his spastic fielding, Christen left nothing to chance this time, dominating the Eagles and holding them to one hit over 6 shut-out innings. His final line included 6 K's and just 3 walks...PLUS he even managed to both field a ball hit to him AND throw it to first without completely freaking out. I'm not ashamed to admit that I almost had tears in my eyes while that play was developing.

The Challengers also got the bats going, pounding out 13 runs with the help of 10 walks, 6 hits and 4 HBPs (2 each for Alex Gordon and Adderly Sarmiento...yet NONE for Nick Lehmann...weird). While missing Kurt Kovac, the C's welcomed back Juan de la Rosa, who contributed a hit, 3 runs, 2 walks, and his usual inexplicable base-running decisions (that somehow always seem to work out just fine). Yusuke Azuma had two doubles and two RBIs, and Lehmann also had two hits and drove in two. Also of note, Andreas Rüdishüli swung the bat well, with a hit, two runs and an RBI. All in all, a solid performance by the team, and much more reminiscent of last season's run through the regular season.

by Alex Gordon