Freshman guard Tashon Brown led all players in the game with a career-high 28 points but Lake Forest was outscored 91-84 by visiting Ripon College Wednesday night.
Brown shot 8-for-13 from the field and 10-for-13 from the foul line and added three rebounds and three assists. Senior forward Danny Sotos was next on the team with 15 points and he climbed into the top 10 in program history with 1,313 points in his career. Junior guard Sam Husting shot 4-for-6 on three-pointers in a 14-point performance and also led the Foresters with eight rebounds.
Sophomore guard Sean Espinosa had a team-high four assists on the night and is now just two away from becoming just the second player in program history to reach 100 assists in multiple years. Brown leads the squad with 106 and Lake Forest has never had more than one player reach the century mark in that category in the same season.
The Foresters were outshot on the night 56.4 percent to 50.9 percent but extended their streak of making at least half of their shots to five games. Ripon also had a 21-18 edge in made free throws and a 35-27 advantage in rebounds.
The scored was tied 10 times in the opening period, which Ripon closed out with an 8-2 run to take a 48-40 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The margin grew to as many as a dozen points multiple times in the second half, the last at 68-56 with 13 minutes remaining. The Foresters cut the deficit to six by the 8:46 mark and pulled to within four three minutes later. They would get no closer, however, as Ripon connected on seven of eight free throws in the final two minutes to secure the victory.
Lake Forest fell to 16-8 overall this season and 12-5 in Midwest Conference play while Ripon ran its overall record to 14-10 and league mark to 10-7.
The Foresters will close out the regular season at Grinnell College Saturday at 3:00 p.m. The Foresters and Pioneers will also face off in the semifinals of the four-team MWC Tournament at St. Norbert College next Friday evening.