Lake Forest College Sports Information
February 7, 2004
Contact: Mike Wajerski, SID

Foresters Split and Remain in Fourth Place
Team defeats Stout, falls at River Falls

 Rob Bilcox scored his first two goals of the year on Saturday.
RIVER FALLS, WI - The Forester men’s hockey team split a pair of Northern Collegiate Hockey Association road games over the weekend (February 6-7) to remain in fourth place in the league standings. Lake Forest won 4-1 Friday night at UW-Stout but fell 7-2 at UW-River Falls on Saturday. Lake Forest is now 16-5-2 overall and 6-5-1 in NCHA play.

Stout got on the scoreboard first on Friday with a goal at the 17:19 mark of the opening period.

Lake Forest tied the score at the 3:01 mark of the second stanza on junior Andrew Francone’s (Unionville, ON/Milton Merchants) seventh goal of the year. Freshman Greg Ihnken (Peoria, IL/Chicago Freeze) and sophomore Troy Lother (Beach Park, IL/Green Bay Gamblers) each earned an assist. The trio also combined for the go-ahead goal, Lother’s third of the season, at 12:22.

Freshman Tyler Canal (Thunder Bay, ON/Stratford Cullitons) and senior Bryan O’Connor (Calgary, AB/Calgary Canucks) each scored his 12th goal of the year in the third period to tie junior Robin Charest (Cabano, QC/Hebron Academy) for the team lead. Freshman Scott Taje (Wetaskiwin, AB/Lloydminster Blazers) assisted on both scores and junior Dave Williams (Thornhill, ON/Thornhill Rattlers) also helped on O’Connor’s.

Junior Joel Cameron (Markham, ON/Milton Merchants) stopped 47 of 48 shots on goal to maintain the highest save percentage (.945) in the nation. He also raised his record on the year to 9-2-0.

After a scoreless first period Saturday night, River Falls erupted for four different types of scores in the second. The first was scored with both teams at full strength, the second on the power play (4-on-3), the third 4-on-4, and the fourth was short-handed.

After two more Falcon goals early in the third period, Lake Forest finally got on the scoreboard on senior Rob Bilcox’s (Calgary, AB/Bow Valley Eagles) first goal of the year at 5:59. Junior Ryan Scapinello (Guelph, ON/Stratford Cullitons) earned the assist. Bilcox scored again less than four minutes later off an assist from Francone. River Falls tacked on a score with three minutes to play to close out the scoring.

Lake Forest will host the College of St. Scholastica (6-13-4, 1-9-2 NCHA) Friday (February 13) night at 7:00 and UW-Superior (14-6-3, 7-3-2) Saturday (February 14) afternoon at 2:00. A split would guarantee the Foresters their first-ever NCHA Playoff series at home the following weekend (February 20-21). A sweep could potentially move the team into third place in the league standings.

Lake Forest - Stout Box Score
Lake Forest - River Falls Box Score