The Albert Lea boys’ hockey team had a good chance of beating Mankato West Tuesday night until they got too rough and racked up 11 penalties and lost 7-3 in the third period.

“We’ve got to learn from this,” Tigers head coach Roy Nystrom said. “We can’t continue like this.”

West scored the first goal of the game 7 minutes, 13 seconds into the first period. Albert Lea responded around the 11 minute mark with a goal by Nate Stadheim, assisted by Adam Herbst. Twenty seconds later, Alex Claasen scored with an assist from Lucas Peterson.

The first period ended with two Mankato West powerplay goals scored within 30 seconds of each other to allow the Scarlets a 3-2 lead.

The Tigers came out in the second period fired up again, and with an assist from Aspen Heilman, Herbst was able to score within 12 seconds.

With 1 1/2 minutes remaining in the second period, Herbst was given a major penalty for checking from behind and just like that the Tigers caved.

They added three more penalties in the third and allowed the Scarlets to score three powerplay goals and one more once the Tigers were back to full strength.

“That’s the whole story,” Nystrom said. “You’re under the gun when you’re down two men, and we were.”

The Tigers had 11 penalties, the Scarlets had seven. Mankato West had 33 shots on goal, and Albert Lea had 23.