Challengers rally in final at-bat for 8-7 win

The Challengers had to fight until the final inning to get an 8-7 win against the underdogs Embrach Rainbows in Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader at the Heerenschürli.

	Armin Blickenstorfer">Armin Blickenstorfer had a game-high three hits.

Jason Jhung led off the game with a solo homer off Benny Räber, but Chris Palatinus' solo homer and two unearned runs led to a 3-1 Challengers lead after the first frame.

The Rainbows came back though and tied the game at 3 apiece in the third inning on Roger Savoldelli's two-run homer, his second of the season.

The Challengers' answer came in the bottom of the fourth inning as Thor Thoresen plated Roger Brunner with an RBI-single, and later scored as rookie Claudio Deck reached on an error by shortstop Jhung.

Räber and Savoldelli both pitched a scoreless fifth inning, and Savoldelli was then relieved by Hunter Berryhill.

Räber (4-3) pitched into the seventh inning where he ran into trouble as Bruno Albrecht led off with a double - after striking out in his previous two at-bats-, and Francisco-Robles followed with a two-run homer to tie the game at 5-5.

Räber gave up a single and a walk to the next two batters before retiring Berryhill on a bunt back to the mound.

	Roger Savoldelli pitched well enough to win the game, but he finished with a no-decision.

With two runners in scoring position, Savoldelli hit a grounder to shortstop Jose Vazquez who booted the ball and allowed both runners to score for a 7-5 lead.

Räber then rang up Mark Imhof on three strikes and got Roman Gloor to ground out to second to stop the bleeding.

The Challengers were determined to rally one more time in the bottom half of the final inning as they led off with three consecutive singles to load the bases before reliever Berryhill retired Brunner on a popup for the first out.

But then he lost it as he walked Thoresen and Harry Bregy to force in two runs and tie the game at 7-7.

Vazquez got a chance to make up for his error that could have cost his team the game, and he jumped on the opportunity and hit a walk-away single to win the game.

Game notes
Armin Blickenstorfer's single in the first inning was his 250th total base of his NLA-career. ...Jose Valdez moved past Saentis Zeller into fifth place on the Challengers' alltime list for hits by getting his career 187th hit. Only three active players (Thomas Landis, Anubis Benitez and Palatinus) have more hits. ...Tobias Siegrist extended his hitting-streak to 12 games by going 2-for-4.