The Lake Forest College men's soccer team defeated visiting Ripon College 9-0 on Sunday to finish the regular season with the best record in the Midwest Conference and claim the 2016 league title.
The scoring barrage started just 3:24 into the contest when Forester junior Seton Trostle scored on a 30-yard shot over the Red Hawk goalkeeper. Trostle struck again at the 36:43 mark with junior Osvaldo Lara Soria picking up an assist. Trostle completed his first career hat trick on his sixth goal of the season with just 26 seconds remaining in the opening half.
Sophomore Gaston Aubert added to Lake Forest's lead just 2:47 into the second half with his eighth score of the season. Aubert is second on the team in goals behind junior John Cappuccitti, who netted his 11th of the year at 68:24. Junior George Moushi assisted on the scores by Aubert and Cappuccitti.
The home team tacked on four more goals in the game's final 10 minutes. Junior Nipun Chauhan scored for the first time in 2016 off a long pass from senior John Palutsis at 80:18. Seniors Bjorn Trail-Johnson and Philip Marshall then set up freshman Lucas Geib's fifth goal of the season at 84:49. Trail-Johnson added his second score of the year just 58 seconds later and then assisted on freshman John Obrien's first career goal with 1:57 to play in the contest.
The Foresters out-shot the Red Hawks 15-1 in the first half and 21-4 in the second.
All three of Lake Forest's goalkeeper saw action for the third game in a row. Sophomore Tero Elias started and earned the victory after keeping Ripon off the scoreboard for 56:15. Classmate Elvin Husetovic was in for the next 15:23 and junior Josh Geiger made a pair of saves during his 18 minutes and 22 seconds of action.
The Foresters finished the regular season 11-7 overall and in first place in the MWC with an 8-1-0 league record. Ripon completed its season 4-13-0 overall and 0-9-0 in the conference.
Lake Forest will host the four-team MWC Tournament next weekend and take on Grinnell College in Friday's 11:00 a.m. semifinal. Knox College and St. Norbert College will face off in the other semifinal at 1:30 p.m. and the winners will play in the tournament final at noon on Saturday. Satutrday's winner will earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament.