The Lake Forest College football team posted its third straight victory, a 34-13 triumph over visiting Knox College, on Saturday. Forester senior running back Al Mitchell finished the contest with 131 yards from scrimmage and scored three touchdowns.
Mitchell carried the ball 13 times for 75 yards and a pair of scores on the ground. He also caught six passes for 56 yards and another score. Mitchell is now tied for fifth in program history with a dozen career rushing touchdowns and his 15 scores overall rank seventh.
Mitchell was not the only Forester to climb the program's historical rankings. Senior quarterback Pete Scaffidi completed 22 of 34 passes for 271 yards and two touchdowns in the game. He passed Geoff Sobey (2007-10) and Jeff Ziemnik (2004-07) and moved into fourth place in team history with 4,380 passing yards. Seven of his completions and one of his touchdowns went to senior wideout Austin Sobey, who led all players in the game with 103 receiving yards. His second completion of the day was also the 100th of his career and he is now tied with Joe Whalen (1983-86) for sixth in school history with 105 catches in his career.
Freshman running back Joey Valdivia actually led the home team with 81 yards on just seven carries and junior Alec Howe covered another 39 yards on eight attempts and scored a touchdown. Scaffidi added 42 yards on seven carries and the Foresters finished the afternoon with 246 yards on the ground and a season-high 517 overall.
Sophomore linebacker John Preston and junior linebacker Bryce Jones led Lake Forest with eight tackles apiece and Preston added a sack. Junior linebacker John Dillon finished with nine stops, including a pair of sacks. The Forester defense forced one turnover, a third-quarter interception by junior cornerback Ed Dobernig.
Knox turned the ball over on downs on the game's first possession and the home team responded with an 11-play, 87-yard drive that ended with a 1-yard touchdown run by Mitchell.
Neither team was able to score again in the opening period but Knox found the end zone just 44 seconds into the second. Another score by the visitors with five minutes to play in the quarter put them ahead 13-6 and that was still the score at halftime.
A 20-yard catch and run by Mitchell less than two minutes into the second half tied the game and his 12-yard sprint to the end zone gave the Foresters the lead with 7:30 to play in the third.
Sobey beat the corner and Scaffidi found him for a 35-yard touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter and an 11-yard run by Howe accounted for the final score with 4:04 to play in the game.
Lake Forest reached the end zone on four of six drives while limiting the Prairie Fire to just 121 total yards in the second half.
The Foresters are now 3-1 overall and 3-0 in the Midwest Conference for the first time since their 2002 conference championship season. Coincidentally, the 2002 team was honored on the field at halftime as the College celebrated the 10th anniversary of their league title.
Knox fell to 0-4 overall and 0-3 in the conference.
Lake Forest will travel to Carroll University (3-1, 2-1 MWC) for a 3:00 p.m. kickoff.
