With under two weeks to go until state-qualifying meets, Marshalltown bowling got a taste on Monday night of what it’ll take to try and qualify as a team.

The Bobcats finished third in battles with Ames and Newton in 15-game Baker triangulars at Wayward Social.

The girls were within 200 pins of their foes, with Newton leading at 2,092 pins, Ames second with 2,060 and Marshalltown at 1,948. The MHS boys finished with 2,663 pins, trailing Newton (2,738) and Ames (2,904). Newton’s boys are a returning state qualifier team.

The 15 Baker format mimics how team state-qualifying works, with girls meets scheduled for Feb. 12 and boys for Feb. 13.

Marshalltown’s girls had their best and worst games of the day in the first five rounds with a 161 to lead off the night and a 98 to finish with a 632 five-game total on Lane 2.

Lane 3 was kinder to the Bobcat girls, racking up 705 pins for the best score in the second batch of games and getting within 60 pins of the leaders. But the final five games were a setback with a 611 total on Lane 1 and the weakest five-game stretch for the Bobcat girls.

“We were switching the lineup around because it seemed like every game someone else was in the right spot, or was hot or not hot,” girls head coach Dustin Peterson said. “Pretty tough today.”

The MHS girls only had six of their Bakers above their 135-pin average entering Monday.

“Our scores weren’t reflective of how we’ve bowled in the last month,” Peterson said. “It’s something we’re gonna have to work on. It comes down to focus — there were a lot of distractions today, I don’t know exactly what it was but it just didn’t seem like we had any focus to begin with.”

The MHS boys couldn’t break 200 in the first five games, then cleared 200 twice in the next five rounds with a 218 and 220, only to shortly after have their lowest scores of the night with a 139 and 129 as they slipped out of reach of their opponents.

“We do too much of one big game, then a little game, big game, little game,” boys head coach Nathan Clark said. “That defeats the point of the big game, so like I’ve said, we just need to be more consistent. But they’re a young group of kids and they’re working on learning that consistency.”

The final set of Baker games were a bit more consistent — just not enough to close the gap. The Bobcat boys had eight games at or above their 178-pin Baker average on Monday.

“For the most part, we stayed with what we’ve done all year,” Clark said. “And it really doesn’t matter where you bowl as long as you’re throwing good balls.”

Marshalltown travels to Des Moines Lincoln on Thursday for a make-up dual with the Railsplitters and is the last stop before the Alliance bowling meets — girls roll on Feb. 6 and boys on Feb. 8, with both meets at Cadillac XBC in Waterloo.