The Lake Forest College men's lacrosse team hosted and defeated Illinois Institute of Technology 12-7 on Mohr Field on Wednesday.
Forester sophomore Trip Gaston had a season-high six points on three goals and three assists in the contest. He scored twice in the first quarter and his man-up goal gave the home team a 4-0 lead a little more than eight minutes into the game. Junior John Casey, senior Bobby Ojascastro, and freshman Ryan Dousevicz also scored in the period, which ended with the home team ahead 5-1.
The Scarlet Hawks accounted for the next three goals and were a man-up late in the second. Gaston, however, came up with a ground ball in front of the Forester bench and headed straight for the goal, avoiding a couple of defenders on his way to a hat trick and a crucial man-down goal. Fellow sophomore Bode Rubright scored 45 seconds later and the Lake Forest lead was 7-4 at halftime.
Freshman Brendan Herbert netted his team-high 11th goal of the season and Rubright added his fourth, putting the Foresters on top 9-4 going into the fourth. Gaston assisted on Herbert's tally and on two of Casey's three scores early in the fourth. Gaston now has 16 points on seven goals and a team-high nine assists while Casey's four goals on the day give him 10 in just two appearances so far this season.
Illinois Tech rallied for three goals late in the contest to make the score 12-7.
Led by freshman John O'Reilly 12 faceoff wins in 17 chances, Lake Forest was 16-for-23 in that category in the contest. O'Reilly finished with a game-high seven ground balls while classmate Mario Florio was next with six.
Sophomore Conor Murphy continued to lead the Foresters' efforts on defense, causing three of the Scarlet Hawks' 29 turnovers.
Lake Forest sophomore goalie Andrew Widlar stopped 7 of 11 shots on goal in nearly 43 minutes of play and freshman Jacob Lipson was 5-for-8 during the rest of the game.
The Foresters are now 4-0 and have outscored opponents 64-14 so far this season. Illinois Tech fell to 2-1.
Lake Forest will host Benedictine University Saturday afternoon at 1:00.
