Alyssa Sager scored a career-high 31 points Friday to lead the Albert Lea girls’ basketball team to their first home win of the season 64-53 over the Faribault Falcons.

Sager was 5-for-11 from the 3-point line, 12-of-17 from the free throw line and grabbed a team-high 12 rebounds while playing 34 3/4 minutes.

The Tigers (3-17, 3-11 Big Nine) finished the first half on a 12-4 run and led 31-24 at the break. The Tigers then scored the first six points of the second half and went back-and-forth with the Falcons before Faribault took a one-point lead with 10 minutes left.

Trailing for the first time since late in the first half, the Tigers moved from their full-court press into an extended zone defense and outscored the Falcons by 12 the rest of the game.

On Parent’s Night, seniors Sager, Taylor and Skyler Anderson combined to score 54 of the Tigers 64 points.

“The seniors did a great job,” Gillam said.

Friehl had 12 points, five steals, four rebounds and four assists.

“Friehl had a solid game,” Gillam said. “She’s really responded to some of the things I’ve challenged her with.”

Anderson had 11 points, five rebounds and five assists.

The Tigers jumped out to a 4-0 lead early Friday but the Falcons (2-19, 2-13) responded with a 9-1 lead to pull ahead 9-5.

The teams then traded runs as the Tigers pulled ahead 18-11 until the Falcons scored seven unanswered to tie the game at 18-18.

“We were battling illness and just didn’t have the energy level that we had when we played at their house,” Gillam said, of the Tigers who won at Faribault 82-54 on Jan. 7. “We didn’t have the same edge but were able to adapt and gut out a win.”

The win also snapped the Tigers season-high eight-game losing streak and slid ahead of the Falcons into ninth place in the Big Nine Conference. The Tigers play at eighth-place Rochester John Marshall (5-17, 5-10) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.