The defending Big Nine champs rolled.

The Albert Lea Tigers were shorthanded to start with and stumbled a bit in a relay.

It led to a third-place finish in the only home meet of the season for the Albert Lea High School girls’ track and field team at Hammer Field Tuesday.

As expected, Rochester Century ruled with 96 points. Mankato West had 66, Albert Lea 61, Rochester Mayo 57.

&uot;We were a little shorthanded, missing some key athletes because of illness and vacation, and we had a little mix-up in the 4×200 relay, but overall the girls performed pretty well,&uot; said ALHS coach Margo Wayne. &uot;We made some big strides toward accomplishing some of the things we want to do in our meets. We knew we’d be going up against some tough competition.&uot;

Emily Bartusek continued to compete tough for the Tigers, winning the 200 and 400 meters while anchoring the first-place 4×400 relay team. Amy Ravenhorst, Jasey Porter and Beth Kolling ran the first three legs of the relay.

Steph Overgaard had Albert Lea’s other first place, winning the long jump.

There were three seconds, by Bartusek in the triple jump, Kolling in the 100 and Katie Stenseth in the 1600.

Dara Cunningham, Becky Birkhofer, Kelley Schreiber and Shawna Griffith took third in the 4×100 relay.

Other Albert Lea places: Stenseth, third, 800; Ravenhorst, third, 200 and fourth, high jump; Kolling, third, high jump; Overgaard, fourth, 100 hurdles and fifth, 300 hurdles; Tiffany Truesdell, fourth, 3200; Stephanie Thisius, fourth, pole vault; Stacy Busch, fourth, shot put; Chelsea Olchefske, fourth, discus; Rachel Antinozzi, fifth, 3200.

The Tigers compete next Tuesday at Winona, where they’ll again face Century.