Challengers take Series opener 13-10

The Challengers won game 1 of this year's Swiss Finals against the Therwil Flyers 13-10 by outhitting their opponents 16-11 with some timely hitting.

	Thomas Landis hits his second double of the game off starter Kleiber in the 3rd inning.

He finished with three doubles and a grand slam homer, and collected a game-high six RBI's.

The Challengers jumped ahead of the Flyers by scoring twice in the first inning off starter Philipp Kleiber on Thomas Landis' RBI-double, and an RBI-single by Tobias Siegrist.

The Flyers managed just a single unearned run in their bottom half of the first inning as shortstop Joe Cox made a bad throw to first on what could had been an inning-ending double play.

The Flyers managed to tie the game in the second inning on catcher Ivano Piaia's solo homer to lead off the inning.

But that was all starter Landis (7-0) allowed through the first four innings.

	Rookie Tobias Siegrist went 2-for-5 with two RBI's.

Meanwhile, his offense came alive in the top of the fourth as the Challengers sent nine batters to the plate to score six runs off Kleiber (3-2) and reliever Roy Allenspach.

Kleiber didn't manage an out in that inning as the first five batters reached on four singles and a base-on-balls. Allenspach took over to face Landis. But Landis jumped on the second pitch and belted a bases-loaded grand slam homer to give his team a commanding 9-2 lead after just 3 1/2 innings of play.

Landis then got into a jam in the bottom of the fifth as the no. 8 and 9 batters of the Flyers reached on a walk and a single. He managed to strike out the next two batters before Fernando Abril laid down a clean two-run single past 3rd baseman Anubis Benitez to cut the Challengers' lead to 9-4.

	Thomas Landis allowed six stolen bases, three of them to Karim Traore.

But the Challengers got three runs back in the top of the sixth on yet another RBI-double by Landis, and three costly errors by the Flyers' defense.

But the Flyers were not done yet and came back to score four runs in their bottom half of the inning.

Piaia lifted his second four-bagger of the game with one out, Reto Siegel's double with two outs plated two more runners, and Abril capped the inning with an RBI-single to rally his Flyers to 12-8.

	Flyer starter Philipp Kleiber gave up eight runs in 3+ innings before being lifted for Roy Allenspach.

There were no runs in the seventh inning before Jose Valdez led off the eighth with his record-breaking 23rd homer of the season off Allenspach. It broke Adris Linares' mark of 22 homers in a single season, set back in 1994.

The Flyers answered with two unearned runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, but that was all they could do against Landis' brilliant performance and an above-average performance by the Challenger defense.

Landis finished with 10 runs given up - three of them unearned - on 11 hits and five walks. He struck out 11, and collected his seventh win of the season.

Game Notes: Landis broke his career-high for homers in a single season with his 13th shot of the season, a grand slam homer in the third inning off starter Kleiber. ...Cox flied out to center in his 100th at-bat of the season in the seventh inning.