Saturday’s matchup would normally be a throw-away game, a game just to be played to fill a date on the schedule for the Albert Lea boys’ soccer team, but this season has been anything but normal for the Tigers and suddenly they found themselves in almost a must-win situation.

Entering Saturday’s game with Mankato Loyola, Albert Lea was in the midst of a five-game losing streak and had been outscored 12-3 in that span.

The Tigers (3-7, 0-4 Big Nine) were past the midway point of the season and needed to get something going before time ran out on the season and they responded with a 2-1 overtime victory against the Crusaders.

“We needed it,” said Albert Lea head coach Elia Romano. “If we didn’t win this game then it would have been really hard to maintain belief at that point because this was a game that was well within our reach. We needed to get a result out of it, because we’re running out of opportunities to get results.”

Cal Pirsig scored the game-winner in the first overtime session with 42 seconds remaining on a ball just inside the 18-yard box that found the back corner of the net to lift the Tigers to victory. It was Pirsig’s sixth goal of the season and his biggest yet.

“It feels good to finally get a W,” Pirsig said.

Mankato Loyola’s Terry Young gave the Crusaders the lead in the 66th minute when he got his foot on a corner kick and sent it to the back post.

Lars Gjersvik tied the game for Albert Lea with 9 minutes left after he beat the Loyola keeper to a cross from Luke Thompson.

Though pleased with the win, Romano said his team squeaked by the Crusaders and there was plenty of work to be done before the end of the season.

“There’s still plenty that we did wrong today,” Romano said. “We squeaked by this one. I don’t feel like we came out close to as sharp as we did against Owatonna.”

The Tigers travel to Faribault Tuesday to face the Falcons.