The Lake Forest College women's hockey team defeated Concordia University Wisconsin 5-1 at home on Friday in the first game of the teams' Border Battle series.
The Foresters were led by senior forward Samantha Shoebottom, who recorded her first collegiate hat trick and added an assist for a career-high four points. Shoebottom started the scoring at the 6:31 mark of the opening period with the team's first short-handed goal of the season. It was the most impressive of her three scores as she stole the puck from one Falcon defender at her own blue line, faked out the other in the middle of the offensive zone, and backhanded the puck off the right post and into the goal.
Concordia Wisconsin's lone goal of the night came with 1:53 to play in the first and the teams went into their locker rooms knotted at one after 20 minutes of play.
The home team regained the lead at 12:32 in the second on Shoebottom's second score of the contest. She poked in a rebound after the Falcon goaltender had made a pair of saves on shots from point black range.
Lake Forest led 2-1 after two periods and doubled its advantage 30 seconds into the third on the first career score for junior forward Caitlyn Dahut. Dahut stole the puck right in front of her team's bench, skated into the Falcon zone, and blasted a shot from the top of the left circle into the right side of the net.
Forester freshman forward Zara Post, who scored her first career goal on Wednesday, netted her second Friday night at 4:18 in the third. Shoebottom set up the score, stealing the puck and feeding Post between the circles. Post tucked her shot just inside the left post to make the score 4-1.
Shoebottom completed her four-point night and closed out the scoring with six minutes to play.
After being out-shot 14-8 in the opening period, Lake Forest finished the night with a 40-33 edge in that category.
Forester senior goaltender Hannah Turnage made 32 saves and improved to 6-4-2 with a .941 save percentage and 2.09 goals against average on the year.
Lake Forest is now 8-4-2 overall and 3-1-1 in Northern Collegiate Hockey Association play this season. Concordia Wisconsin fell to 9-5-1 overall and 4-3-0 in the league.
The teams will complete the annual Border Battle Saturday night at 7:00 in Mequon, Wisconsin.