The first inning proved to be the difference on Monday night for the Spirit Lake Indian baseball team as they fell to #4 ranked Kuemper Catholic out of Carroll 5 – 1. Brandon Stoll gave up 3 of his 5 earned runs to the Knights in the first inning. Kuemper Catholic would get 5 runs on 10 hits while Spirit Lake was held to 1 run on 6 hits with the first run coming in the 6th inning.
Spirit Lake’s Paul Brown was 2-3 at the plate with the only run scored. Also, Brandon Stoll, Nic Amudson, Tony Eckert and Cole Thate were each 1-3. The lone RBI came from Reese Salmon. Kuemper Catholic was led by Logan Nolting as he went 3-4 with 1 RBI. Also, Chris Halbur was 2-4 with 2 RBI’s and Bryce Wessels was 1-2 with a RBI
The winning pitcher was Chris Halbur going 7 innings, giving up 1 run on 6 hits while striking out 10 and no walks. The losing pitcher was Brandon Stoll going 6 innings, giving up 5 runs (all earned) on 10 hits while striking out 3 and walking 4. Halbur improves to 10-0 while Stoll suffers his first loss and finishes at 8-1 on the mound.
Spirit Lake finishes the season at 16-11 and lose 6 seniors in Brandon Stoll, Paul Brown, Nic Amundson, Reese Salmon, Andrew Ites and Nick Wetzeler.
Kuemper improves to 29-6 and play in the semifinals Thursday at 8 PM against North Polk as they needed 13 innings to defeat Albia 2-1. Also, in 2A Dyersville Beckman beat Waterloo Columbus 3-2 and Roland Story got by Mount Vernon 2-1.