Foresters Finish NCHA Regular Season With Losses at Stout and River Falls
Team finishes seventh in NCHA, will face UW-Superior in playoffs

RIVER FALLS, WI - While the Lake Forest College men's hockey team began the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association regular season with a weekend sweep of UW-Superior and the College of St. Scholastica, they concluded it a pair of losses at UW-Stout and UW-River Falls.

On Friday (February 8th) night, the Foresters fell at the hands of UW-Stout 2-0 in front of 200 at the Dunn County Ice Arena in Menomenie, Wisconsin. Mitch Kellin got the Blue Devils on the board when he beat Forester freshman goalie Joel Cameron (Markham, Ontario) with just 18 seconds to go in the first period.  The second period was scoreless and the third featured just one goal by UW-Stout's Nate Legler to seal the win. 

Lake Forest had several scoring opportunities in the third, including a five-on-three power play late in the period, but they could not beat Blue Devil goaltender Nathan Anderson.  Anderson stopped all 24 shots he saw and earned his first collegiate shutout. This was the first shutout of the season for UW-Stout. The Foresters were shutout for the third time this season.

After Fridays loss, Lake Forest went into UW-River Falls with hopes of avoiding the longest road trip they could draw for the playoffs: UW-Superior. Unfortunately the team came up short.

The Falcons of UW-River Falls defeated Lake Forest solidly 4-0 on Saturday (February 9th) night. The first period was even until Nate Kotewa gave the Falcons a 1-0 lead on his short-handed goal late in the period. Kotewa struck again in the second period, this time with under a minute to go, to make it 3-0. UW-River Falls scored one goal in the third period to secure the win and home ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs. 

Lake Forest College fell to 9-14-1 overall and 4-10-0 in the NCHA. The team tied with UW-Stout for sixth place, but lost the tiebreaker to the Blue Devils. This is the second year in a row the Foresters will represent the seventh seed in the playoffs and the first time in three years they will not take on UW-River Falls. Lake Forest is looking for its first-ever NCHA playoff series win this Friday and Saturday (February 16th) night at UW-Superior.

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

By Brian Monahan.
Edited by Mike Wajerski.