The Lake Forest College men's hockey team jumped out to a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period and went on to defeat visiting University of Dubuque 6-4 in Friday night's weekend series opener.

Freshman forward Christopher O'Flaherty started the scoring at the 6:52 mark. Senior forward Logan Kittleson came out of the corner of the offensive zone with the puck and fired a shot from the left circle. The Spartan goaltender made the save but O'Flaherty was there to put in the rebound and increase his team-high goal total this season to 13.

The Foresters were 2-for-7 on the power play while Dubuque was 0-for-4. Senior forward Colin Bella turned in the first such score with exactly two minutes to play in the opening period. He took a pass from fellow senior forward Philip Quetell at mid-ice, skated past a Spartan at the top of the left circle, and just before he reached the goal line extended, snuck a shot past the Dubuque goalie from a difficult angle. It was the 11th score of the season for Bella, who is now alone in fourth place in program history (since 1996) with 15 career power play goals.

Just 27 seconds of game time passed before the home team struck again on sophomore forward Max Abramson's second of the year.

Lake Forest out-shot Dubuque 17-6 in the game's first 20 minutes and took a 3-0 lead into the locker room at the first intermission.

After the Spartans finally got on the scoreboard at the 6:34 mark of the second period, the Foresters' three-goal lead was restored by a power play goal from sophomore forward Max Jaldung just four minutes later.

O'Flaherty earned one of the assists on Jaldung's score and then netted his second of the night and 14th this winter 86 seconds into the third.

A Dubuque short-handed goal at 4:21 made the score 5-2 but Lake Forest sophomore forward Jax Schauer changed it to 6-2 with his second of the year at 13:18.

The visitors made things interesting with a third goal at the 14:49 mark and a score using an extra attacker with 64 seconds on the clock. The Spartans put 15 shots on target to the Foresters' nine in the final period but were still out-shot 36-30 on the night.

Lake Forest held on for the victory and improved to 5-14-1 overall and 5-8-0 in Northern Collegiate Hockey Association on the year. Dubuque, meanwhile, fell to 4-15-1 overall and 1-11-1 in the league.

The same two teams will face off again in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse Saturday afternoon at 4:00. It will be Alumni Day for the Foresters and the 2026 Peter Taylor Award will be presented at the end of the first period.