Oskaloosa ? Countryside Lanes is a far cry from the home bowling alley Free State High’s bowling team is used to. But leaving the 40-lane alley of Royal Crest Lanes to face Oskaloosa High on Countryside Lanes’ eight lanes on Tuesday wasn’t enough to keep Free State from sweeping its dual.

“The shot here isn’t as good as what we normally bowl on,” said FSHS bowler Alex Hardman of Countryside Lanes. “There’s a lot less oil here so we had people playing 10 boards farther left than what they normally do. We were just out of our element.”

The boys, led by Hardman’s 516, topped Oskaloosa 2,007-1,478. Their female counterparts defeated the Bears 1,516-1,287 behind Gretel Briand’s 425.

“Last year was our first time here and they were a little frustrated, almost angry,” FSHS coach Anita Carlson said. “They realized they were coming back to this house and I said, ‘You need to keep up your morale. You can’t get frustrated because the lanes are like this.’ And the scores, we anticipated being this low. But they stuck with it and worked through it.”

The biggest issue for the Firebirds was the lack of oil on the lanes and how it made it more difficult to control the curve on the ball.

“This actually makes you a better bowler by bowling on conditions like this because you have to focus more and spares become more important,” Hardman said. “But when you bowl somewhere else you have more area. So this definitely makes you a better bowler.”

After bowling a 118 in first game, Rob Wagner bowled the best game of the dual with a 208 in Game 2. Wagner finished with a 512 and was just one pin behind teammate Tyler Kring, who finished with 513.

FSHS’ Aaron Bernhardt was the fourth bowler to contribute to Free State’s final total with 466 pins.

Christina Picicci (400 pins), Lanae Spencer (378) and Bailey Carlson (313) combined with Briand’s total to collect the win for the girls team.

“A lot of the people that have marks that they usually hit, they couldn’t hit because it would just knock them right into the gutter,” Briand said. “It was just really different.”

Oskaloosa’s Jesse Walburn was the top boys bowler for the Bears with a 372. Amber Burbank led Oskaloosa’s girls team by bowling a 384 total.

The Firebirds will get one day of practice back at Royal Crest before traveling to AMF West on Thursday.

“I think we’ll do better because this was just kind of a blooper day,” Briand said. “We usually bowl a lot, lot better.”