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The Austin girls hockey team faced off against one of the best teams in Southeast Minnesota and found out that they still have some growing to do as they lost to the Tigers (1-0 overall) 17-0 in Riverside Arena Tuesday.

The Packers (0-2 overall) were outshot 23-2 in the first period as AL grabbed a 5-0 advantage.

“It was really tough. We’ve got a young team and, if you count JV, we played six really hard periods of hockey. The girls are resilient and they’re hanging in there. That’s all I can ask for,” Austin head coach Sultanna Akkerman said. “We’ve just got to remember that there’s another game coming up and we’ve got to have a short term memory. I told the girls that we’ve just got to start singing the Taylor Swift song ‘Shake it off’ because we’ve got another game on Saturday.”

Freshman goalie Chloe Schaal stopped 27 of the 40 shots she saw in net for the Packers, who had 10 shots on goal. Austin eighth grader Lily Haedt played goalie in the third period.

“I’m super, super pleased with my goaltenders,” Akkerman said. “Both of them are young, but they’ve grown by leaps and bounds.”

Austin lost its season opener at Windom by a score of 6-1 on Saturday. Brenna Haedt scored the lone goal for the Packers.