The Lake Forest College men's lacrosse team hosted and defeated Benedictine University 13-8 on Saturday in the quarterfinals of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Tournament.
The Eagles started the scoring but the Foresters led 4-1 by the end of the opening quarter with two goals from senior
Brendan Herbert and one each by freshman
Liam Smith and junior
Carson Pagel.
Pagel struck again in the second quarter but back-to-back Benedictine goals made the halftime score 5-3.
Lake Forest pulled away with six unanswered goals in the third. Smith's second of the day was followed up by three in a row from Pagel and two by sophomore
Aidan Wigton. Pagel's five-goal performance is his second of the season and nine of his 23 tallies so far this season came in the Foresters' two games against Benedictine. He also assisted on a score for a career-high-tying six points on the day.
Wigton and Smith completed their hat tricks in the fourth while the Eagles scored five times to make it a 13-8 final. Wigton leads the team with 28 goals on the season while Smith now has 13.
Herbert added an assist to his two goals on the day, raising his program record career point total to 184.
Junior
Gabe Boston won 12 of his 17 faceoffs and led Lake Forest with four ground balls while junior
Judson Norris and senior
Evan Heitner paced the squad in caused turnovers with two apiece.
Another quality performance was turned in by senior
Jacob Lipson as the Foresters' last line of defense. He made nine saves while allowing just three scores in the first three quarters of the game. Sophomore Billy Drapefr and freshman
Henry Morgan combined for five saves in the final 15 minutes.
Lake Forest is now 10-6 on the year while Benedictine finished the season 11-6.
The Foresters will travel to Aurora University on Wednesday in the semifinals of the NACC Tournament. The winner will advance to next Saturday's tourney final.
