The Forester men's hockey team defeated visiting Northland
College 8-5 Saturday afternoon (January 23) to finish off a weekend
sweep of the LumberJacks. Lake Forest is now 7-8-1 overall this
season and 7-4-1 in Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association play.
Northland fell to 2-15-0 overall and 2-10-0 in conference
games.
After falling behind and needing a third period rally to pull out
the victory the night before, Lake Forest jumped out to the early
lead on Saturday. Junior Anthony Ventura (Pleasant Prairie,
Wis./Lebanon Valley College) scored for the first time as a
Forester just 30 seconds into the contest off assists by senior
Sean Farley (Park Ridge, Ill./Utica College) and sophomore Chad Thompson (Rockwood, Ontario/Listowel Cyclones). Freshman Robert Bote (Eching, Germany/Smith Falls Bears) then converted a power
play opportunity at 4:39 and added his second score of the game and
sixth this season at 11:50. His first goal was assisted by Thompson
and freshman Thomas Bark (Toronto, Ontario/Streetsville Derbys) and
the second by seniors Adam Love (Durham, Ontario/Elmira Sugar
Kings) and Peter Pfeffer (Farmington Hills, Mich./Walpole Stars).
Thompson assisted on all four of the team's goals Friday night and
each of the first two on Saturday. Northland got on the scoreboard
with 2:23 to play in the period, which ended with the Foresters
ahead 3-1.
Both teams scored three times in the second period. Love assisted
on Pfeffer's fourth goal this year at 1:35 but Northland pulled
back to within two goals at 5:02. Pfeffer and sophomore Ben Finney
(Pontypool, Ontario/Robert Morris University) then assisted on
Love's power play goal, his seventh score of the season, at 12:34.
The visitors, however, responded with their own power play goal at
15:05. It took just 34 seconds for the home team to regain its
three-goal lead on junior Tyler Gross' (Fond du Lac, Wis./Fond du
Lac H.S.) first score of the year. He was assisted by Ventura and
Farley. The LumberJacks closed out the second period scoring at the
17:10 mark and entered the final 20 minutes trailing the Foresters
6-4.
A Northland power play goal 67 seconds into the third period pulled
the visitors to within one but they would not get the puck past
Lake Forest freshman goaltender Brendan Sullivan (Fall River,
Mass./Aurora Tigers) again in the game. Senior Justin Taylor (Sun
Valley, Idaho/Walpole Stars) scored for the ninth time this season
at the 4:29 mark and freshman Trent Brown (Ayr, Ontario/Elmira
Sugar Kings) added his fourth goal of the year just 31 seconds
later. Bark earned the assist on Taylor's score.
Lake Forest will play a home-and-home series with Marian University
next weekend (January 29-30). The two teams will face off in Lake
Forest at 7:30 Friday night and in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Saturday
at 4:00 p.m.