ALBERT LEA &045; In the opening of a doubleheader on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon, the Albert Lea girls’ soccer team shutout section foe Mankato Loyola, 5-0.

The win extended the Tiger’s season record against Mankato teams to 3-0 with three players scoring their first career varsity goal.

The outcome was never in doubt as the Tigers controlled play throughout.

This year’s squad is averaging over four goals per game and has five shutouts.

Albert Lea gives up just over one goal per game.

It only took 11 minutes for the Tigers to win the game on the season’s first goal from Southwest eighth-grader Morgan Stadheim with an assist from Jaclyn Rehmke.

Laura Hillman notched the insurance goal on a Whitney Wilson corner kick 15 minutes later.

There was only 19 seconds left in the half when another eighth grader, Stephanie Ferguson, inked her first off another Wilson corner kick.

Coming out of the half, the Tigers continued to press the Crusaders.

Three minutes into the final quarter, Abbey Arends, the third rookie eighth grader, capped a Wilson to Walters to Arends goal combination.

With 7 minutes left in the game, Samantha Overgaard took a drop from Jenna Christensen and put a long lob over the goalkeeper to claim her first varsity score.

&uot;On many teams,&uot; said Albert Lea head coach Rick Barnhill, &uot;you have one or two ‘stars’ that carry a team.

Stop those stars and you stop the team.

The Tigers are balanced; anyone can assist and anyone can score.

This gives us the capacity to surprise opponents because they don’t know where it’s coming from; only that it is coming.

‘So far, fourteen of the eighteen players on the roster scored this year and for half of them, it was their first varsity goal. Diversity in scoring is good because five really tough conference games are left in the regular season and we need every goal.

The team must focus and play at the top of their game because the competition in the Big Nine is too good and will pounce on any letdown.&uot;

The Tigers are 8-4 overall, 6-2 in the Big Nine and 3-0 against section opponents.

The Tigers are at Hammer Field against the John Marshall Rockets on Tuesday and the Winona Winhawks on Saturday.