Senior goaltender Louis-Philippe De Courcy registered his fifth career shutout in the Foresters' 4-0 victory at Aurora University.
De Courcy stopped all 33 of the Spartans' shots on goal and is now just one shy of the school record for career shutouts.
There was back-and-forth action throughout the opening 20 minutes and the Foresters scored the only goal of the period with 3:58 on the clock. A big shot block from sophomore forward Kyler Magus led to him racing down the ice and slipping past the Spartan goaltender, who strayed too far from the net in a race for the puck. "I thought the goalie was going to play it up the boards, but he kind of fumbled the puck and then dished it to the corner," began Magus. "I saw the puck sitting there and quickly jumped on it. When I looked up he was still way out of the net and I just had to slam it home."
De Courcy was magnificent in the middle period as the Foresters were outshot 15-3. "We were on the penalty kill a bunch, but the guys blocked a lot of shots early on and then we settled in a little better in the zone," explained de Courcy. "I had a lot of guys block shots in front of me and made a couple saves. We were all really confident as a group as we kept them to low quality chances."
Aurora held the edge in shots 20-11 but the Foresters still had a 1-0 lead after 40 minutes of play.
Sophomore forward Joey Sardina was able to draw a penalty at 9:47 in the third period as he was hooked in the high slot. Just 53 seconds later the Red Oak, Texas, native would score to extend his point streak to seven games and give the Foresters a 2-0 lead on a nasty wrister inside the left circle.
At 15:06 of the final period junior defenseman Zach Feldman scored one of the craziest goalies of the season. He collected the puck at the red line and threw it on net, catching the goaltender out of position and making it a three-score lead.
The Foresters grabbed an empty net goal with 16 seconds left when sophomore defenseman Mark Dermanulian sent one the length of the ice to score for the first time as a Forester.
Lake Forest improved its overall record to 5-3-3 while Aurora fell to 7-4.
The Foresters will close out the semester at home Saturday night against the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the top-ranked team in the country. The puck will drop at 7:00 p.m.
