The Lake Forest College men's lacrosse team opened Midwest Lacrosse Conference play with a 22-3 victory over Northland College at home on Saturday.
Sophomore Bode Rubright led the Foresters with a career-high six goals, beginning with the game's initial score just 51 seconds into the contest. He also assisted on the first of five goals on the day for freshman Brendan Herbert less than two minutes later. Both players scored again in the first period and additional tallies in the period came from junior John Casey, sophomore Parker Hevers, and senior Bobby Ojascastro.
Already ahead 7-0 after the first 15 minutes, Lake Forest added eight more unanswered scores in the second quarter. Herbert was the first to complete his hat trick and Rubright followed with his third and fourth of the afternoon. Sophomore Chas Dean added his name to the scoring column and Casey went back-to-back to raise his season total to 26 and become the third Forester with a hat trick. Freshman Brant Schuckman made the score 14-0 and Herbert closed out the first half scoring.
The 16th goal of the year by Lake Forest sophomore Trip Gaston made the score 16-0 before the LumberJacks finally got on the scoreboard with a man-up goal early in the third quarter. Schuckman netted his second of the day and fourth this year and two scores by Rubright, including one of the man-up variety, gave him six in the contest and 22 in 2023. Freshman Ryan Dousevicz's 14th of the year made it a 20-1 game after three quarters.
Ojascastro lifted his season goal total to 13 and Herbert to 24 in the fourth. Herbert also matched Rubright's seven points on the day and leads the team with 36 this year.
Forester sophomore goalkeeper Andrew Widlar stopped all three shots on goal he faced in the first 22:40 to earn the victory. Freshman Jacob Lipson and sophomores Kyle Joyce and Ryan Caparelli combined for five more saves while allowing just three scores the rest of the way.
Lake Forest won 20 of 28 faceoffs, including 11 of 17 by freshman John O'Reilly. O'Reilly also led the home team with nine ground balls while sophomore Connor Tartaglione added six. Freshman Grant Pederson, who was 6-for-8 on faceoffs, and sophomore Conor Murphy chipped in with five ground balls apiece and Murphy racked up seven of the Foresters' 23 caused turnovers.
The victory raised Lake Forest's overall record on the season to 7-4 while Northland fell to 3-6.
The Foresters will continue MLC play at defending league champion University of Dubuque next Saturday at 1:00 p.m.
