Seems at least for one night anyway, the old Mountaineer one-two punch was back. In recent years, the names were Foster Wonders and Marcus Johnson, players who would score a bushel basket full of points in the same game.

This time, it was freshman Oskar Kangas and junior Joey Colavecchi. Kangas scored a career high 32 points and Colavecchi also topped his career-best total with 24 points to send the Mountaineers to a 59-42 Mid-Peninsula/West Pac Conference victory at Mountaineer Gym.

Pull out the calculator and you’ll see that Kangas and Colavecchi scored 95% of Iron Mountain’s points in the win.

“That’s not been characteristic of our team the first 10 games,” Mountaineer boys varsity coach Harvey “Bucky” Johnson said. “We’ve had three, four guys who are in double figures or with eight, nine points.

Mountaineer freshman Oskar Kangas (0) was on fire all game Friday night, filling up the scoring column for 32 points. Kangas and teammate Joey Colavecchi scored 56 of Iron Mountain’s 59 points in a 17-point victory over Ishpeming.

“Oskar’s gaining confidence,” Johnson continued. “He’s got the ability. He’s shooting it better, he’s going to the basket and of course the dunks. And Joey had a heck of a game. We’ve been hoping that was going to happen and it happened tonight.”

Offensively, Iron Mountain (8-3) started slowly. Kangas got his team on the scoreboard with a dunk off a steal at the 6:45 mark. The Mountaineers didn’t score again until Kangas repeated that play about 2 1/2 minutes later for a 4-4 tie.

Shortly after that, Colavecchi sank three free throws after being fouled shooting a triple. Kangas followed with the next seven points and Iron Mountain held a 14-11 edge after one.

While Kangas was on target right from the start, Colavecchi really got revved up in the second quarter when he recorded 11 points, including the final seven of the half to power his team to a 32-20 cushion at the break.

This year is a totally different situation for Colavecchi than last, when he played sparingly off the bench for a veteran Mountaineer crew that advanced to the state finals. But the athletic junior hasn’t had any trouble adjusting to increased minutes at all.

Iron Mountain’s James Chartier (40) scrambles for a loose ball with a pair of Ishpeming players. Both teams competed hard, but the Mountaineers were the better team, scoring a 59-42 victory over the visiting Hematites. Iron Mountain’s Joey Colavecchi (12) and Gerald Sampoll Torres (10) watch the action.

“Last year, I came off the bench for a couple of minutes a game at most,” he said. “But this year, I’m back in middle school where I played the whole game. So it’s like taking a break and getting right back into (heavy minutes). It’s like riding a bike.”

The Hematites (4-5) stuck around, mainly behind the scoring of Jayce Kipling. The 6-foot-3-inch senior scored eight of his team-high 17 points in the third quarter to keep Ishpeming within 45-31 heading into the fourth.

But Kangas and Colavecchi were just too much offensively for the Hematites. Kangas started the fourth quarter with a triple and then Colavecchi split two free throws and sank a 3-pointer. At that point, the two had scored 51 of Iron Mountain’s 52 points (98%). Then, freshman point guard Gerald Sampoll Torres hit a layup off feed from fellow freshman Ian Marttila as the Mountaineers took a 54-36 lead with 4:31 remaining.

Other than Sampoll Torres’ bucket, the only other Iron Mountain point was scored by Marttila when he hit a free throw about midway through the second quarter.

No worry for Johnson, however.

“As the game moved on, we just kept feeding them because they were hot,” the veteran coach said.

While Kangas has been impressive and productive offensively since the first game of the campaign, this was Colavecchi’s break-out game. Johnson was asked how important the 6-1 guard’s scoring is to his team’s success moving forward.

“It’s big,” he said. “If we can get him scoring like we think he can, and the other guys can play their roles, I mean, that’s just going to add a dimension to our team that’s going to be critical for us.”

Jerry DeRoche can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 244, or at jderoche@ironmountaindailynews.com.