ROCHESTER &045; With the Big Nine meet coming up, Albert Lea boys’ track and field coach Lon Nelson wanted to try some different things with his lineup in Tuesday’s Big Nine triangular at Rochester Century.

He liked what he saw.

The Tigers picked up five firsts while finishing only four points out of second place.

Century won with 78 points. Faribault had 54.5 and Albert Lea had 50.5.

&uot;We had Faribault on the run until late in the meet,&uot; said Nelson.

One of the lineup changes had Sean Harms moving from the 800 to the 400 meters, and he won it in 54.5 seconds.

&uot;That seemed to spark a lot of our other runners later in the meet,&uot; said Nelson.

The other individual win was by Taylor Zimmerman in the 1600.

Albert Lea won three relays. Josh Wilke, Jason Kuipers, Andrew Irvine and Nate Lombardi took the 4×100, Joe Squires, Irvine, Chris Jackson and Lombardi won the 4×200, and Squires, Jon Friday, Harms and Irvine took the 4×400.

&uot;Coach Jeff Marty guided his sprint relays to convincing victories,&uot; said Nelson. &uot;And they all know they can bring their times down even more with extra training.&uot;

Other Albert Lea places: Andrew Stapleton, second, 100 and third, triple jump; Mike Veldman, second, shot put; Squires, second, 200; Levi Budd, second, 3200; Kuipers, second, pole vault and third, high jump; Friday, third, 400; Nick Garcia, fourth, 110 hurdles; Logan Schallock, fourth, triple jump; Lionel Thomas, fourth, 300 hurdles; Jackson, fourth, 200; and Jordan Neve, fourth, discus.

The Tigers host Mankato East and Rochester Mayo next Tuesday.