Those who weren’t familiar with Albert Lea’s newest basketball player got acquainted quickly Thursday night when the boys’ basketball team faced Waseca in Albert Lea.

All summer long and into the fall there were rumblings about the new kid in town who was going to play on the basketball team and finally Albert Lea got to see Kyle Ooms in action. Ooms, a 6-foot-4 sophomore transfer student from Aplington-Parkersburg High School in Iowa, made a memorable impression in his first game with the Tigers and helped deliver a 51-44 season-opening victory over the Bluejays.

Ooms scored a game-high 20 points and collected 14 rebounds to give a lowly program a much-needed morale boost and Albert Lea head coach Lucas Kreuscher his first victory as the Tigers head coach.

The transition from a Class A school in Iowa to a Class 3A school in Minnesota was going to be a jump for Ooms but he made the transition seamlessly.

“I told him right away, ‘Welcome to Minnesota basketball’ and I think he said, ‘Welcome to Iowa basketball players,'” Kreuscher said.

Notching a numeral into the win column this early quickly answered the question when would the Tigers win a game, but also inspired a team in need of inspiration.

“It gives us hope,” said Albert Lea senior Colby Strilaeff. “I don’t think none of us were real excited about basketball because we haven’t won lately. But with this win it gets us fired up, gets the school fired up, the town fired up and brings basketball back to Albert Lea.”

The Tigers (1-0) played the game they needed to play in order to win — limiting possessions and finding the right shot in the half court. The patience paid off in the first half as Albert Lea jumped out to a seven point halftime lead against a team that beat the Tigers 71-53 a year ago.

Ooms overshadowed Waseca standout Nick Hanson throughout the first half and the Tiger defense limited Hanson to just two points, but the second half the Bluejays (0-2) came out with more intensity and took their first lead with 10:47 left in the game when Jacob Sass scored.

Albert Lea had just gone five minutes without a field goal and the memories of seasons past crept back into the minds of some of the players.

“I think we all knew. We all said to ourselves, ‘Here we go again, they’re going to come on a run,'” said Strilaeff, who finished with 11 points. “But this year we responded and were able to hold on in the end.”

Where previous Tiger teams would have wilted away, this year’s squad found the resolve to battle back and Strilaeff finally started to find his jump shot.

With the game tied at 38 and 2:36 left to play Strilaeff hit his second 3-pointer of the game to give Albert Lea a 41-38 lead. Just 22 seconds later he hit his third 3-pointer of the game to extend the lead to 44-38 and with the shot iced the game for the Tigers.

Waseca got as close as four later, but Aaron Klatt sank three free throws in the closing minute to preserve the victory.

For a team that had two wins in two seasons there wasn’t much celebration following the victory.

“We expect more than one win this year, but this win definitely, definitely feels nice,” Strilaeff said.

Albert Lea 51, Waseca 44

Waseca 17 27 — 44

Albert Lea 25 26 — 51

Albert Lea scoring: Kyle Ooms 20, Colby Strilaeff 11, Cam Hove 5, Silas Randall 4, Aaron Klatt 4, Alik Smed 3, Josh Eisenbraun 2, Damian Montes 2.

Waseca scoring: Nick Hanson 19, Dustin Sartori 10, Christian Hall 6.