Freshman point guard Sean Espinosa scored a season-high 18 points and had nine assists against just one turnover in the Lake Forest College men's basketball team's 79-62 victory over visiting Illinois College on Wednesday.
Espinosa made seven of 10 attempts from the field, including two of four attempts from three-point range, and added five rebounds on the evening. His assists came on six layups and three connections from beyond the arc. Espinosa leads the Midwest Conference with 6.8 assists per game and his 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks second in the league.
The Foresters' leading scorer on the night was senior guard Eric Porter, who was successful on eight of 14 three-point field goal attempts and finished with 26 points. He has now made at least that many three-pointers in a game four times in his career while the rest of the players in program history have accomplished the feat just once. Porter also had three steals in the contest and has scored 83 points and added 10 steals in three games over the last five days. Junior forward Chad Bauchan also reached double figures with 13 points, matching the career-high he set on Saturday, while junior guard Jordan Moran and senior forward Orlando Brown shared game-high honors with seven rebounds apiece.
Lake Forest made 49.2 percent of its field goal attempts in the contest and shot 11-for-30 on three-pointers and 8-for-11 from the foul line. They limited the Blueboys to 39.3 percent shooting and out-rebounded the visitors 41-29. Both teams committed a dozen turnovers on the night.
Illinois College led by as many as five points early on and, after falling behind by six late in the first half, came back to tie the score at 28. Layups by Porter and Bauchan put the Foresters back up by four before a Blueboy three-pointer made the score 32-31 in favor of the home team at halftime.
An 11-3 run by Illinois College to open the second half gave the visitors their largest lead of the contest at 42-35. Lake Forest faced a six-point deficit before outscoring the Blueboys 27-5 in an eight-minute span to take a 66-50 lead with seven minutes remaining. The margin eventually reached 20 points on Espinosa's last basket of the night with 1:23 to play.
The victory is the Foresters' seventh in a row after a season-opening loss with four of those wins coming in league play. Illinois College fell to 3-3 overall and 0-3 in the MWC.
Lake Forest's next game will be played on Saturday, December 16, against visiting North Park University. Tip-off is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.
