Plenty of times this spring, the Albert Lea High School baseball team has been in games where a play or two could have resulted in the Tigers’ first victory.

Monday wasn’t one of them.

Rochester Mayo came to town and took advantage of eight Albert Lea errors while winning 17-2 in five innings at Hayek Field.

&uot;We backed up today,&uot; said Albert Lea coach Joe Sczublewski. &uot;We’ve been playing pretty well. In a lot of games, a key hit here or there could have made the difference. But not today. You can’t have eight errors against anybody and expect to win.&uot;

Five of the errors came in the first inning, when the Spartans put five runs on the board.

Derek Goodnature provided the Tigers’ offensive highlights with a two-run home run in the bottom of the first. The other Albert Lea hits went to David Villarreal, Josh Diaz and David Heijerman.

Preston Dahl started and pitched the first three innings. Only two of the 12 runs off him were earned.

&uot;He deserved a much better fate than that,&uot; said Sczublewski. &uot;It wasn’t a good day for us defensively at all.&uot;

Diaz relieved Dahl in the fourth and gave up five earned runs on seven hits. Ryan Truesdell pitched a scoreless fifth.

The Tigers, 0-10, travel to Owatonna today. The Huskies won the season opener 7-4 at Albert Lea.

Rochester Mayo 17, Albert Lea 2

RM702

80 &045; 17

17

2

AL200

00 &045; 2

4

8

LP &045; Preston Dahl