Lake Forest Routs Trine, Clinches Spot in Harris Cup Playoffs

Photo by Matt Demirs
Photo by Matt Demirs

Senior forward Charlie Izaguirre started the evening with four goals on the year and finished with twice that total as the Forester men's hockey team defeated visiting Trine University 6-1 Saturday night.

Izaguirre joined Ian Pichel, who accomplished the feat in February of 2016, as the only Foresters with four-goal performances since 1990. His first score was the official game-winner and a power play goal at the 14:37 mark of the opening period. Izaguirre also had a 4-on-3 goal at 16:43 in the second period, completed his first career hat trick at 2:39 in the third, and became the first player in recorded school history to score three power play goals in a game at 5:12 in the final stanza.

Senior forward Billy Kent accounted for the home team's other two scores and now has five on the year. He got things started at 3:35 in the first period, made the score 3-0 five minutes and 10 seconds into the second, and assisted in Izaguirre's final tally of the night.

Senior forward George Gerasimou, who received the team's Peter Taylor Award at the first intermission, assisted on three of Izaguirre's scores and continues to lead the 2017-18 Foresters with 21 points and 16 assists. Freshman forward Troy Nelson set up both of Kent's goals. Among the five Foresters with one assist on the night was freshman forward Kyler Magus, who earned his first career point.

Lake Forest put 44 shots on goal on the evening while 17 of the Thunder's 18 were saved by junior goaltender Louis-Philippe De Courcy. De Courcy improved to 9-7-1 with a 2.10 goals against average and .927 save percentage on the season.

Lake Forest is now 12-10-1 overall and 9-6-1 in Northern Collegiate Hockey Association play while Trine fell to 5-15-2 overall and 1-12-2 in the league.

The Foresters have clinched one of the NCHA South Division's four spots in the Harris Cup Playoffs and hope to improve their tournament seed during next weekend's home-and-home series with league travel partner Aurora University. The teams will face off Friday night at 7:00 in Lake Forest's Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse and at the same time at Aurora on Saturday.