The Lake Forest College men's hockey team prevailed 6-1 at Northland College Friday night in the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association opener for both teams. Senior forward Luke Swardenski scored a pair of goals to lead the visitors.
Both of Swardenski's goals were scored in the third period. Lake Forest entered the third with a 3-0 lead after a goal by senior forward Jason McAloon six minutes into the game and power play scores by sophomore forward Anthony Annunziato and senior defenseman Ben Certo in the second period. Swardenski made the score 4-0 at 3:19 in the third, freshman Billy Kent scored for the first time as a Forester just 28 seconds later, and Swardenski tacked on one more at 5:18.
The home team finally got on the scoreboard with 12:05 to play in the contest.
Annunziato was credited with an assist on the goal by McAloon, who returned the favor the next period with junior forward Ian Pichel also assisting on the play. Senoir Bobby Barrett set up both of Swardenski's scores, the first with sophomore Jack Lewis. Sophomore forward Justin Pelock and freshman forward Shawn Nelson assisted on the goal by Kent.
Forester junior goaltender Leo Podolsky made 23 saves in the game, including 10 in the final period. He improved to 2-0-0 with a .941 save percentage and 1.50 goals against average on the year.
Lake Forest, which opened the season with a 6-2 triumph over the University of Wisconsin-Stout last Saturday night, is now 2-0-0 overall this year. Northland fell to 0-3-0, both overall and in league play.
The same two teams will face off again Saturday afternoon at 3:00.