The Lake Forest men's basketball team's season came to a close Saturday in the Midwest Conference Tournament final, as the Foresters fell to Grinnell College, 95-82.
 
Junior forward Cristian Rodriguez was the focal point of the offense for Lake Forest on Saturday, and he produced both in the scoring column and on the backboard. Rodriguez scored a season-high 25 points and hauled in 13 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. The Texas native was 12-of-16 shooting for the game.
 
Senior Alex Knight scored 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting with four rebounds and six assists, while classmate Elijah Bull provided eight points and five assists in a game-high 36 minutes of play. Sharpshooter Luke Arington drilled two three-pointers and was the Foresters' leading scorer off the bench with nine points.
 
While the teams combined to shoot 10-of-41 from three-point land, it was an advantage in rebounding that fueled Grinnell. The Pioneers corralled 17 offensive rebounds for the game and held a 22-11 advantage in second-chance points.
 
The Foresters' offense could not get into the same rhythm and flow that it did in the team's two prior meetings this season against Grinnell.
 
Lake Forest shot 61 percent in a win against the Pioneers on Jan. 4, then shot a scalding 68.9 percent from the field in an overtime loss to Grinnell on Feb. 8. However, Lake Forest was limited to 46.5 percent shooting Saturday and made just 4-of-16 three-pointers for the game.
 
Grinnell used a huge run in the first half to get out to an early lead. The Pioneers utilized a 23-4 spurt in the final stages of the first half to go into the break with a 54-31 lead.
 
As has become the Foresters' calling card in their last two wins against Beloit College and Monmouth College, Lake Forest made a run of its own after halftime to get back into the game.
 
The Foresters ripped off a 24-5 run to open the second half, culminating with a steal from Alex Brown who pushed the ball ahead to Bull for a layup to cut the Grinnell lead to 59-55 with 13:07 remaining in the game.
 
Grinnell immediately responded with an 11-2 run of their own to push the lead back into double digits, and the Foresters could not reduce the deficit to under seven points for the rest of the game.