The Lake Forest College football team had its 2022 season come to an end Saturday on a 50-0 loss at North Central College, the top-ranked team in the country.
The Cardinals led 14-0 after the first quarter and 35-0 at halftime. They added a touchdown in the third and one more in the fourth to account for the final score.
While the Forester defense was unable to stop North Central, it did hold the highest scoring team in the country points below its season scoring average of 58.3 points per contest. The starting safeties were the team's top tacklers on Saturday with junior Trenton Brail making eight and freshman Thomas DeChesaro seven. DeChesaro recorded his first career interception and Brail had one of the team's four tackles for loss. Lake Forest racked up 94 tackles for loss in 2022, the fourth-highest single-season total in team history.
DeChesaro finished the season as the team's top tackler with 53 while senior defensive end Alex Bendler was second with 49. Bendler ranks among the program's top five in tackles for loss and sacks in a season (20.5/11.0) and career (39.5/22.5).
Despite Saturday's score, this year's Foresters rank third in program history with just 11.6 points allowed per contest and fourth with 33.5 scored. The defense also ranks first in team annals overall, limiting opponents to just 210.1 yards per game, while finishing third against the pass (113.0 ypg) and fifth against the run (97.1 ypg).
Lake Forest's offense was held to just 66 yards on Saturday, including 13 on the ground. Graduate student Damon Bonds and senior tailback Armani Brown combined for more than 1,600 rushing yards this fall and finished their careers among the top 10 in school history. They also ran for a total of 21 touchdowns and rank among the program's top six in that category in their careers.
Senior quarterback Tre Stewart passed for 53 yards at North Central and threw just his third interception of the season. His 137.9 career efficiency rating id the third-highest mark in team history while his 35 touchdown passes are tied-for-sixth.
Lake Forest finished 9-2 this fall, reaching that victory total for just the third time in team history.
"I'm proud of my guys, it was a heck of a season," stated Forester Head Coach Jim Catanzaro after the game. "It was historic in a lot of ways, getting that second conference championship in a row for the first time. We're excited about what we've done but we want more and we've got to do a little more to get there."
North Central is now 11-0 and will host Carnegie Mellon University in next Saturday's second round.
