The Albert Lea softball team could have sent out a search party for its offense Thursday night against Owatonna because it was nowhere to be found.

The Tigers (5-15, 1-15) had just three baserunners in a 10-0, five inning loss and a 2-0 loss to the Huskies in a doubleheader in Albert Lea.

“I don’t know where it came from exactly,” Tigers head coach Chad Feikema said. “We felt like we were swinging the bats fairly well after our games with East the other day and then to come into today’s game and you only get three baserunners and really not hit the ball very well at all. It’s not like we hit a lot of at ‘em balls, we just didn’t make good contact.”

Albert Lea tallied 15 hits in a doubleheader against conference leader Mankato East Tuesday and was able to score more runs than any other team this season against the Cougars in the second game of the doubleheader, a 13-7 loss, but that offense did not appear Thursday against Owatonna.

The Huskies played small ball to perfection in the fourth inning of the first game as two batters reached on back-to-back bunt singles and Owatonna pushed five runs across in the frame to take a commanding 8-0 lead.

“I told our girls after the first inning of the first game, I said, ‘This is going to be what they’re going to try to do,’” Feikema said. “I think we were a little apprehensive about coming up that far with fear of getting burnt. By game two I think that we finally recognized that, yeah, this is the way they’re going to play and we don’t need to worry necessarily about them knocking it over our heads. We handled that a lot better in game two.”

In game two Albert Lea starter Lana Howe limited the Huskies to three base hits, but two miscues led to the only runs of the game.

In the fifth inning Breezy Pitan reached on a fielding error and scored on a single by Kaileigh Lyke. Lyke’s single was the first hit of the game for Owatonna and it came with one out in the inning.

In the sixth inning leadoff hitter Cailyn McCauley hit a single and came around to score on a wild pitch to give the Huskies a 2-0 lead.

The Tigers don’t play until Tuesday against Faribault at home in the regular season finale and Feikema said the time in between games will be spent trying to regain confidence at the plate as the section playoffs creep up.

“Hopefully we’ll correct it in practice tomorrow and get our confidence back and be able to hit the ball better on Tuesday,” he said.

Owatonna 10, Albert Lea 0, 5 innings

Owatonna 003 52x x — 10 13 0

Albert Lea 000 00x x —  0 1 3

WP — Lianna Pilcher 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

LP — Nichelle Klatt 5 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 7 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

Owatonna 2, Albert Lea 0

Owatonna 000 011 0 — 2 3 0

Albert Lea 000 000 0 —  0 1 1

WP — Ellen Heydon 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K

LP — Lana Howe 7 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K