Albert Lea High School bowling team coach Loren Kaiser had modest expectations for the team this season, but the squad has surprised him this season to finish tied for the South Central conference lead.

The Tigers finished the regular season 12-4 and tied with Mankato West, pulling out some close matches and seeing gains made by the younger players. The team has one meet left in the season at Mankato West next week and if it wins that meet it will advance to the state tournament. If Albert Lea places second it will move on to a qualifying round for another chance at state. Is state out of the question for the Tigers, Kaiser doesn’t think so given the way the season has gone.

“We’ve got a real good chance,” Kaiser said. “At the beginning of the year I commented, I was hoping we’d be a little bit above .500 and we went 12-4, which is way better than I thought we would.”

The varsity team consists of eight players, five of which compete at a meet in the Baker system, which is a format where all bowlers alternate for the entire game. If a bowler doesn’t strike, his or her teammate tries to pick up the spare. A match is the best of five games series.

There can be a lot of pressure on teammates to pick up spares and the fill percentage becomes an important statistic. In order to improve that percentage the team spends most of its practice time picking up different types of spares.

The Tigers have a 176 team average and the highest game the team has had is 268 this season.

Tyler Espe has helped lead the team and ranks in the top five in the conference with nearly an 84 percent fill percentage.

Senior Nick DeRaad is second on the team with a 75 percent fill percentage whild Tyler Enderson has a 73 percent fill percentage and Chris Roche has a 72 percent fill ration.

For many on the team it’s the only sport they participate in and the team commits a lot of time on the lanes. The Albert Lea team is a dedicated bunch, who normally bowl in two other leagues at Holiday Lanes and their season lasts nine months, Kaiser said.

“It’s really fun seeing these kids improve and it just kind of makes you smile,” Kaiser said. “I love to bowl, but I have more fun teaching others to bowl than bowling myself.”