Wanderers and Indians Qualify for Austrian Championship Series

The Dornbirn Indians and Vienna Wanderers won their respective Austrian Bundesliga semifinals last weekend, qualifying for the best-of-five Austrian championship series, which is set to start Saturday, Sep 17, with a doubleheader in Dornbirn.

The Indians swept the reigning Austrian champions, Diving Ducks Wiener Neustadt, in their semifinal, which followed another 3-0 sweep, of the Hard Bulls, in the first round of the playoffs. The six playoff wins give Dornbirn, which is located near the Austrian-Swiss border, a cumulative 26-8 record on the season, with the club riding an 11-game winning streak heading into the championship series.

In their semifinal series, the Wanderers needed all five games to get past city their city rivals, the Metrostars, with the rubber game broken open by a three-run sixth inning that gave the Wanderers a 4-1 lead. The Metrostars responded with two runs of their own in the top of the seventh, only for the Wanderers to do the same in the bottom of the frame and bring home another run in the eighth for the final result, a 7-3 victory (box score). Player-manager Hiroyuki Sakanashi had three RBI in the contest, with Peter Reyes driving in two runs.

The Wanderers dominated the Austrian Bundesliga regular season with a 26-2 record, with the two losses coming in one-run games.

The Indians and Wanderers played one doubleheader in the regular season, with the Wanderers taking both games in Dornbirn — 4-2 (box score) and 6-2 (box score) — in late June.

Games 1 and 2 of the championship series are scheduled for Dornbirn, on Saturday, Sep 17, with Game 3, along with Game 4 and Game 5, if necessary, scheduled for Vienna the following weekend.

For more information on the Austrian Bundesliga, including complete standings, statistics, and schedules, visit the Austrian Baseball Softball Federation homepage.