Dragons remain unbeaten as they dump Challengers 20-13

The Challengers faced the Geneva Dragons for the first time after their disappointing loss in the Swiss Cup on May 26, 2002.

One year ago, the Dragons played in the 1.Liga, but quickly promoted to the NLB thanks to a strong squad that started the 2003 campaign with six wins in a row.

So it was up to the Challengers to hand them the first loss of the season, but the Dragons were better in Game 1, handing the Challengers a 20-13 defeat on their home soil.

The Dragons jumped to an early 14-0 lead after just 3 1/2 innings against starter Willy Schaub.

Five of those runs were unearned though as Schaub’s defense committed four unnecessary and costly errors in the field.

The Challengers managed to crawl back slowly, but too slow as it turned out.

The Dragons helped them in their rally as they made five errors alone in the fourth inning.

Sadly enough, the Challengers managed to score just two runs off these defensive lapses.

By the middle of the seventh and final inning, the Dragons had built up a big 20-5 lead that left the Challengers wondering whether they lost the game due to too many errors or the lack of hitting or good pitching.

The Challengers started one last comeback in the final inning.

Dragons’ starter Rieder started the inning and faced the first five batters without retiring any of them.

Richi Kurz relieved and promptly got Oliver Marty to strike out for the first out.

But the next three batters reached base safely, and Oliver Labhart’s sac fly cut the Dragons’ lead to 20-11.

Still a big deficit to overcome, but the Challengers kept fighting.

Chris Hardy and Orlando Balbuena followed with back-to-back RBI-singles, but then Thomas Blank grounded into the game-ending fielder’s choice.

Game notes
Labhart lined out to shortstop Gaillard in the third inning to end his streak of six consecutive base hits.