When it was six-on-six, the Albert Lea High School girls’ hockey team outscored the Owatonna Huskies.

It was the special teams that were especially troublesome for the Tigers.

Albert Lea allowed four power-play goals and an empty netter while falling 6-4 to Owatonna in a meeting of Big Nine Conference leaders at the City Arena Tuesday night.

&uot;We had just as many scoring chances as they did, it was a very even game,&uot; said ALHS coach Mike Miller. &uot;By far, this is the best game these girls have played in six years of the program.&uot;

It was also by far the toughest the Tigers have played Owatonna, with their closest previous game a 6-1 setback.

Senior Lindsay Macy, who has dominated the Tigers in the past, scored a goal and was credited with four assists. Miller said Amy Leach and Lindsey Sorenson did an outstanding job defensively against Macy.

&uot;They allowed us to keep the game the way it was,&uot; said Miller. &uot;They kept her off the board a good deal.&uot;

And goalie Danika Porter played another strong game in the net for the Tigers while facing 30 shots. Albert Lea put 25 shots on goal.

Macy opened the scoring at the 7:01 mark of the first period.

The Tigers answered with Laura Hillman scoring on an Tessa Christensen assist at 9:50.

Then three consecutive Albert Lea penalties essentially determined the outcome as Owatonna capitalized on all three.

The Huskies made it 2-1 with a power-play goal at 10:57 of the first, adding power-play scores at 4:25 and 6:19 of the second to make it 4-1.

But the Tigers bounced back rather quickly.

Brittany Arendt started it, taking the puck on a defensive rush and beating the goalie up high at the 7:16 mark. Then, at 14:33, Hillman converted a breakaway goal to cut it to 4-3.

The Tigers tied it at 1:06 of the third on another outstanding end-to-end effort by Arendt.

It remained 4-4 until the 8:11 mark, when the Huskies scored near the end of another power play. The Tigers pulled Porter with less than a minute remaining and the Huskies hit the empty net.

Albert Lea had five penalties to Owatonna’s three.

The loss dropped the Tigers to 4-1 in the Big Nine and 5-2 overall while Owatonna improved to 3-0 and 4-3.

The ALHS girls are off until next Tuesday, when they travel to Luverne for a nonconference game. They play at Eagan next Thursday.