The Lake Forest College men's hockey team prevailed 5-2 at Marian University on Sunday to finish off a home-and-home sweep of the Sabres. Junior forward Bobby Barrett's game-clinching empty net goal completed his second hat trick of the season.
Barrett also scored Sunday's first goal at the 6:46 mark of the opening period. He was assisted by fellow junior forward Luke Swardenski and senior forward Mike Violette. Marian, however tied the score less than two-and-a-half minutes later. Barrett then regained the lead for the visitors at the 13:54 mark with Violette picking up his second assist of the day and team-high 11th this season.
The Foresters had a 9-7 edge in shots on goal in the first period and led 2-1 after 20 minutes of play. Lake Forest also outshot Marian 13-4 in the second but the Sabres netted the only goal of the period at 12:36.
The official game-winning goal came off the stick of junior forward Jason McAloon at 8:35 in the third period. Junior forward Mcauley Banning and junior defenseman Andrew Stein set up McAloon's fifth score of the year. Violette added an insurance goal, his sixth of the season, just 12 seconds later for his fourth career three-point game. The Sabres pulled their goaltender with 2:10 to play and Barrett, who assisted on Violette's score, secured the win with an empty goal just 49 seconds later.
Barrett, who also recorded a hat trick on November 9, leads the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association with a dozen goals and 18 points in league play. His 14 goals and 21 points overall rank second and tied-for-third in the conference, respectively.
Lake Forest put 31 shots on goal in the game, 10 more than Marian. Forester sophomore goalie Leo Podolsky made 19 saves and improved to 6-1-1 with a 2.59 goals against average and .913 save percentage on the year.
Marian fell to 4-11-2 overall and 3-6-1 in the conference.The Foresters are now 8-8-1 overall and climbed into a tie with Concordia University Wisconsin for fourth place in the NCHA standings with 12 points and a league record of 6-5-0. Lake Forest and Concodia Wisconsin will face off Thursday night at 7:00 in Mequon, Wisconsin.