Challengers earn playoff spot by beating Flyers 13-12 in season finale

The Challengers rallied for the second game in a row in their final at-bat to beat the Therwil Flyers 13-12 on Saturday and secure a spot in the playoffs.

	Benny Räber Infielder, Pitcher Benny Räber
	1999 SEASON STATISTICS AB R H RBI HR AVG 25 9 17 9 2 .680 IP W L SV SO ERA 12.0 1 1 0 15 8.25

The Flyers were first to score as they put three runs on the board - two of them unearned - in the first inning off starter Harry Bregy.

But the Challengers got two runs back in the bottom half of the inning on Tobias Siegrist's two-run double.

They were able to tie the game at 3 apiece in the third inning on Joe Cox' run-scoring ground out.

The Flyers nevertheless reclaimed the lead an inning later by scoring an unearned run.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Challengers managed to take the lead for the first time on Benny Räber's first homer of the season, and a run-scoring ground out by Wolfgang Laabs.

They went on to extend their lead in the fifth by scoring three times on Siegrist's RBI-double, followed by Räber's second homer of the game.

The Challengers entered the top of the last inning with a 10-4 lead, looking to wrap up the game quickly.

Bregy was still on the mound for the Challengers, but he soon started to falter. He allowed a leadoff double to Schenk, followed by a homer by Seppi Zwyer.

The Flyers went on to score six more runs - all of them unearned - off Bregy. With the score 12-10 for the Flyers and two outs, manager Johnny Müller made his move and brought in reliever Räber. He promptly struck out the next batter to end the inning.

Sprenger relieved Zwyer to pitch the bottom half of the ninth, and he promptly got Laabs to pop out to right field. Rookie Claudio Deck was hit by a pitch, but Bregy also popped out to right for the second out of the inning. Willy Schaub drew a walk and Cox followed with a double to put runners on second and third.

Then pitcher Sprenger tried to pick off Schaub, but threw wide off third base, and Schaub scored the tying run.

Siegrist then ripped a single to enable Cox, who moved to third base on the error, to score the winning run.