This Week in the Forest: Feb. 19-25

Six Forester teams compete in national or conference championships or league tournaments this weekend.

With 50 national championships to its credit, the Lake Forest College handball team will travel to Missouri State University for the 2018 United States Handball Association National Collegiate Championships this week. Play begins on Wednesday and runs through the weekend. Seniors Leo Canales and Kyra Vidas are looking to repeat their All-American performances from a year ago and add to the program's strong tradition.

While one team has a long history of success, another is just getting started. Lake Forest added distance track to its slate of varsity programming this year and the team will be competing in its first Midwest Conference Indoor Championship Meet this weekend at Ripon College. Several Foresters are ranked among the league leaders in the distance events this winter and should factor into the scoring on Friday and Saturday.

After finishing the regular season 9-7 in league play, the Forester women's basketball team will also travel to Ripon College this weekend for the MWC Tournament. Lake Forest is making the program's first trip to the four-team conference tourney since 2012 and will take on the host school in Friday night's semifinals. The Foresters are the only team in the league this season to defeat both Ripon and Cornell, who shared the MWC title with identical 14-2 conference records. Cornell will take on Knox College in the other semifinal with the winners playing for a bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament in the final on Saturday.

The men's basketball team is also MWC Tournament-bound after posting a 13-5 record in the league this year. The Foresters will travel to Monmouth College and take on the hosts, who won the title with a 15-3 mark in conference play, in Friday's semifinal round. Lake Forest split the season series with the Fighting Scots and with Ripon College, which will face St. Norbert College in the other semifinal. Saturday afternoon's tourney final will decide which team represents the league in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The Lake Forest men's hockey team kept its season alive last weekend by sweeping host Concordia University Wisconsin in the quarterfinals of the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association Harris Cup Playoffs. The visitors took Friday night's opener 5-3 and prevailed 2-1 on an empty net goal in overtime on Saturday. The Foresters had finished the regular season in third place in the NCHA South Division at 10-6-2 in the league and will play at Adrian College, the top-ranked team in the nation and the South's top seed after going 16-1-1 in the NCHA this season, on Saturday.

The Forester women's hockey team swept visiting College of St. Scholastica 5-0 and 4-1 last weekend to finish in second place in the NCHA standings with a league record of 15-3-0. Lake Forest will host fifth-place St. Norbert College, which completed the regular season with a 9-6-3 conference record, Friday and Saturday night in their NCHA Slaats Cup quarterfinal series. Should they split the two games, a 20-minute minigame would follow Saturday night's contest and decide which team advances in the league playoffs.

While the winter sports are nearing an end, spring has sprung for the Forester men's tennis team, which is already 3-2 this season. Lake Forest will host 1-1 Millikin University and 0-2 Illinois Wesleyan University Saturday afternoon at the Racine Tennis Club. The Foresters defeated Illinois Wesleyan 8-1 last season and has not played Millikin since 1999.

Home events in Bold.
* Conference game 

All-Sports Calendar