WATERFORD — The Iron Mountain co-operative co-ed bowling team headed across the bridge March 5 for their second trip downstate in as many weeks, this time to compete in the Division 2 State Bowling Finals at Century Bowl in Waterford.

Iron Mountain competed in all four divisions at the finals.

Beginning on March 6, both the boys and girls teams bowled in the team event and on March 7, Iron Mountain High School’s Zach Spera and Kingsford High School’s Hanna Bastian competed in the singles events.

Qualifying for the team event began Friday morning, with the format for qualifying consisting of eight Baker games and two regular team games. The Lady Mountaineers began with hot hands, tossing Baker games of 197 and 188, leading the scoring.

After moving one pair of lanes to the left and throwing games of 160 and 148, the Lady Mountaineers held on to first place with a two-pin lead. Lane conditions became difficult as the tournament continued and Iron Mountain found themselves in 15th place at the end of qualifying.

The top eight teams moved on to the match play portion of the tournament. “We were always chasing the changing lane conditions,” said head coach Pete Tomassoni.

After eight Baker games, the Mountaineer boys team found themselves in 11th place, only 16 pins from the cut. In the first team game, Hunter Lautzenheiser fired a 256, which gave Iron Mountain a 1031 game total, which put them in fourth place.

An 855 team game gave the Mountaineers a 3286 qualifying total for sixth place, allowing them to move on to match play.

In the first round of match play Iron Mountain took on three-seed Owosso, shooting 1224-1158 and besting them by 66 pins to move on to the final four. They then were matched against two-seed Jackson Northwest where they lost by 67 pins, 1242-1309. The Mountaineers ended their season finishing third in Division 2.

Saturday morning, Hanna Bastian and Zach Spera returned to Century Lanes for the singles event. The qualifying block consisted of six games, with all bowlers bowling one game, then moving one pair of lanes to the right.

After two games in the girls’ division, Bastian was in 19th place, only seven pins out of the cut with 346. A 191 and 201 game brought her to 17th place, ten pins from the cut line. The last two games gave Bastian a 1077 total for the six-game qualifying block, placing her 23rd.

“Hanna did extremely well, shooting over her average and averaging 179.5 for six games,” said assistant coach Kevin Hanson.

In the boys division, Spera fired 434 for his first two games, putting him in 4th place. A 193 and 210 put Spera at 7th place after four games. Two more games of 177 and 196 gave him a total of 1210, which was good for 13th seed and the chance to bowl in match play.

As match play began for Spera, he was trying to throw a new ball, struggled and fell to 4th seed Braden Triggs of Owosso.

“All the kids bowled extremely well,” Tomassoni said. “The fact that we had both teams and two singles in the State Finals says a lot about their dedication to our sport.”