The Lake Forest College men's basketball team came from behind to defeat Beloit College 68-59 at home Wednesday night.
Junior guards Rocco Ronzio and Zach Foster were the Foresters' leading scorers and combined for 30 points. After matching his career-high with 16 points at Cornell on Saturday, Ronzio established a new personal best with 17 on Wednesday and Lake Forest outscored Beloit by 21 with him in the game. Foster was perfect from the field shooting 5-for-5 overall and 3-for-3 on three-pointers.
Forester sophomore guards Elijah Bull and Alex Knight also reached double figures with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Bull, who leads the Midwest Conference in assists, dished out a career-high nine on the night.
Lake Forest outscored the Buccaneers 15-6 at the foul line and forced 14 turnovers while committing just nine. Beloit had the rebounding edge with 39 to the home team's 31. Shooting percentages were similar with the Foresters at 42.6 percent and the Bucs at 41.1.
There were five ties and three lead changes in the first half, which ended with the visitors ahead 34-27. The deficit the Foresters faced grew to a dozen points early in the second half and was 10 with 12:51 to play.
A traditional three-point play by Bull started the comeback and, after a Beloit free throw made the score 47-39, Lake Forest rattled off 12 straight points in less than two-and-a-half minutes to pull ahead by four. The lead changed hands eight more times, the last on a three-pointer by Ronzio that put the Foresters on top 61-59 with a minute-and-a-half to play. Lake Forest held Beloit scoreless the rest of the way and shot 5-for-6 from the line in the final 40 seconds to secure the victory.
The Foresters improved to 7-8 overall and 4-2 in the MWC this year while Beloit fell to 4-11 overall and 1-6 in the league.
Lake Forest will travel to Illinois College on Saturday for a 5:00 p.m. tip-off.
