The Lake Forest College men's lacrosse team hosted and defeated Cornell College 20-1 on Wednesday in the semifinals of the Midwest Lacrosse Conference Tournament.

The Rams actually scored the game's first goal two minutes into the contest.

It was all Foresters after that point. Junior Conor Murphy tied the score two minutes later with a man-down goal and freshman Macklin Thomas gave the home team the lead at the 5:35 mark. Junior John Casey, sophomore Brandan Herbert, and junior Parker Hevers added to the lead and Herbert completed his eighth hat trick of the season with a pair of goal in the final 65 seconds of the first quarter.

Leading 7-1 after 15 minutes of play, the Foresters tacked on four more goals before halftime with junior Trip Gaston and sophomore Brant Schuckman each accounting for one and the other two coming from Thomas.

The Foresters scored six goals in the third, including the first of the contest for juniors Connor Tartaglione and Max Guyott and freshman Tyler Dearmin. Hevers and Casey each netted his second of the day and Herbert his fourth. Herbert leads Lake Forest with 40 goals this season.

Gaston struck again early in the fourth quarter, Casey recorded his fifth assist of the game on a goal by sophomore Dylan Alexander, and Dearmin closed out the scoring with two minutes remaining.

Murphy and Tartaglione shared game-high honors with six ground balls apiece while Casey added five. Lake Forest had a 53-24 advantage as a team in that category.

The Foresters also had a commanding 17-6 edge on face-offs with sophomores John O'Reilly and Gabe Boston each winning six of eight and graduate student Gordon Kiesgen IV five of seven.

Lake Forest registered 24 caused turnovers and was led by Murphy with five.

The Foresters goalies were stingy as well. Junior Andrew Widlar stopped five of six shots on goal during the first three quarters and sophomore Jacob Lipson made a pair of saves in the fourth.

Lake Forest improved to 14-2 on the season while Cornell finished the year 6-9.

The victory set up an MLC Tournament final between the Foresters and the University of Dubuque for the third year in a row. The game will be played Saturday afternoon at 2:00 on Farwell Field.