Lake Forest College team began Midwest Lacrosse Conference play with a 17-7 victory at Cornell College on Saturday.

Sophomore Brendan Herbert led the defending league champions at the offensive end of the field, scoring five goals and assisting on one. He leads the team with 40 points and the conference with 30 goals this season. Freshman Carson Pagel, the MLC leader in assists, added three to his total for the year, which now stands at 18. He also scored twice.

Pagel scored the game's first goal and Herbert set up sophomore Ryan Dousevicz for the second. The visitors led 4-1 at the end of the first quarter, 10-2 at halftime, and 13-3 after the third quarter.

Dousevicz and sophomore Dylan Alexander matched Pagel with two-goal performances while six other Foresters scored once each.

Junior Conor Murphy assisted on a pair of goals and tied graduate student Gordon Kiesgen IV for team-high honors in ground balls with six. Murphy also had three caused turnovers, as did fellow junior Aidan Horn. Lake Forest had a 58-33 advantage in ground balls in the contest.

Kiesgen won 14 of 18 face-offs to raise his season percentage to .708. Sophomores John O'Reilly and Gabe Boston combined for seven more wins in nine attempts on the day.

Junior goalie Andrew Widlar allowed just three goals in more than three quarters of play and lowered his goals against average for the year to 7.79.

The Foresters won for the 10th time in 11 games this season while Cornell fell to 4-6.

Lake Forest will continue league play at the University of Northwestern in Saint Paul, MInnesota, next Saturday at 1:00 p.m.