The Lake Forest College football team was defeated 27-10 at Monmouth College on Saturday. Junior safety Luke Butts (game-high 13 tackles) and the rest of the Forester defense limited the Fighting Scots to just 12 first downs and 278 yards of offense but five turnovers by the visitors decided the game.
A 99-yard touchdown drive by Monmouth gave the home team a 6-0 lead after the opening period. Three consecutive Fighting Scot touchdowns in the second quarter, aided by a Forester fumble and interception, made the score 27-0 at halftime.
Lake Forest finally got on the scoreboard on its second possession of the second half. The visitors traveled 81 yards in 11 plays and scored on a 15-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Pete Scaffidi to junior wide receiver Kevin Davis. It was Davis' seventh touchdown reception in as many games this season.
A 26-yard field goal by Forester senior Tim Gruzwalski made the score 27-10 with 9:10 remaining but turned out to be the final score of the contest.
Monmouth managed to gain a total of just 32 yards and punted on each of its first five possessions of the second half. Three Forester interceptions, however, helped prevent the visitors from completing the comeback.
Lake Forest sophomore running back Al Mitchell carried the ball 11 times for a game-high 78 yards. Junior Josh Kabala caught a team-high six passes for 40 yards and Davis hauled in four passes for 59 yards.
The Forester defense registered eight tackles for loss, includiung three sacks, in the game. In addition to Butts' 13 stops, junior defensive end Casey Flynn had eight tackles and five other players finished with at least five.
"That was a frustrating loss," stated Lake Forest head coach Jim Catanzaro. "For some reason we were not ready to play at the start of the game. Our second half performance showed that we could compete with them play-for-play but we had fallen behind by too much to come back. One glaring issue was our inability to take care of the football. We have to eliminate those mistakes."
The Foresters will host Lawrence University next Satirday at 1:00 p.m. A live video webcast of the game will be available at www.pennatlantic.com and live stats will be available on the Lake Forest College Athletics website.