Barracudas 13, Challengers 11

The Barracudas used the long ball to sweep the Challengers in Game 2 of Saturday's doubleheader by a score of 13-11.

Anubis Benitez>

Anubis Benitez hit two solo homers and scored a game-high four runs.

12 of the Barracudas' 13 runs came on homers, the only other run scored on Armin Blickenstorfer">Armin Blickenstorfer's throwing error.

That pretty much reacps the game in which the Challengers always played catch-up and were never able to equal the Barracudas' high-octane offense.

Adris Linares, Holgi Schmidt and Dave Sekac who already homered in Game 1, now homered again. Three other Barracudas also homered: Hirtz had a three-run homer in the second inning, Nderim Coma popped a two-run homer over the center-field fence and François Riva also added a two-run shot in the sixth frame.

The Barracudas had six homers and scored 12 of their 13 runs on the long ball.

Again, the Barracudas started the scoring, this time in the second innig. With one out, Coma hit a two-run homer, and four batters and one out later, Manu Hirtz lined a three-run shot over the left center field fence for a commanding 5-0 lead.

That was the day for starter Benny Räber (3-1) who surrendered his first loss of the season. He lasted just 1 2-3 innings, his shortest outing of the season, giving up five runs on just two hits and five walks and striking out one.

Anubis Benitez relieved him and induced François Riva to hit into an inning-ending groundout.

The Challengers managed only a single run in their half of the second on newly-acquired Andreas Mathis' RBI-single that scored Benitez from third base.

Manager-player Sekac added another run for the Barracudas in the third inning with a solo homer, but Farid Bekkali grounded into an inning-ending double play two batters later.

Roger Brunner>

Roger Brunner hit his second homer of the year in the fifth inning.

The Challengers came within three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning on two solo shots by Benitez and Armin Blickenstorfer's second homer of the year.

But Barracudas starter and former Challenger Ueli Von Burg proved to be too much for the Challengers as he sailed on to his fifth win of the season by giving up 11 runs - one of them unearned -, 12 hits and five walks.

The two teams combined for 14 more runs in the last two frames as François Riva, Linares and Schmidt hit three homers for six runs and the Challengers collected eight runs on Benitez' fifth homer of the season, Roger Brunner's solo shot right afterwards, Chris Palatinus' two run-scoring groundouts, Saentis Zeller's and Blickenstorfer's RBI-singles and Makoto Fukamachi's run-scoring fielder's choice.

The Challengers now lead the Therwil Flyers by half a game, and will play them on July 25 and 26 in two doubleheaders that will decide who will be on top after the regular season.