Audubon uses crooked numbers to put away Wolves

 COON RAPIDS (July 12) -- For four innings on Thursday, pitcher Alex Lingle and IKM-Manning were able to stay away from the big inning defensively and hang with Audubon in a Class 1A district baseball semifinal.
 Unfortunately for the Wolves, when momentum started to swing the way of the Wheelers, a 1-0 game quickly snowballed into an early finish.
 Putting 12 of its last 13 batters on base safely, Audubon plated five runs in the fifth and four in the sixth - with no outs recorded - to hand IKM-Manning a season-ending 10-0 defeat at Coon Rapids.
 Senior Josh Lange pitched a six-inning three-hit shutout for Audubon, which also beat the Wolves by a pair of 6-2 margins in the regular season. The Wheelers moved on to Saturday’s District 15 final against 10th-ranked CAM and lost 7-6, finishing 12-11 overall.
 IKM-M, which knocked off top-seeded Madrid in the district quarterfinals two days earlier, ended its season with a record of 8-15.
 Lingle had allowed just one run on two hits when the fifth inning began, but a leadoff walk and a one-out hit batsman turned the lineup over for a third trip and set the stage for trouble.
 With two out, Marcus Olsen’s blooper to short right field dropped just in front of a charging Grant Stracke and hopped past his glove for an RBI double. The inning  could have ended one batter later, but a throwing error on Lange’s ground ball let in another run and Tyler Riebhoff, Dylan Obermeier and Skyler Schultes followed with consecutive RBI singles to make it 6-0.
 Audubon continued to pull away in the sixth, which started with a walk, an error and a bunt single by Nolan Smith.
 The Wolves will lose two seniors in Jared Johnson (their ace pitcher) and Chris Monson, who were both five-year players.