Lake Forest High School seniors on the boys' lacrosse team have another outing to add to their Saturday calendar.
After graduation ceremonies end around 4 p.m. Saturday on the front lawn at the high school, the Scouts will board a bus for Palatine High School to face No. 1 ranked Loyola for the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association State championship. The game starts at 6 p.m.
Lake Forest (21-2), ranked No. 2, advanced with literally a hard-fought 8-5 semifinal victory over Waubonsee Valley Thursday at Lake Forest. Loyola (16-5) earned a berth with an 11-5 win over Wheaton South on Thursday as well.
The Scouts trailed 3-2 at halftime, but just like in Tuesday's win over Glenbrook North, they came out with guns blazing in the third quarter. Lake Forest scored three unanswered goals and never trailed again. Waubonsee answered to close to within 5-4 with less than five minutes left in the third quarter, but Lake Forest's Andrew Clifford scored his second goal of the game to silence that uprising.
Ryan Tupper netted a goal with an assist from Clifford to boost the Lake Forest lead to 7-4 within the first minute of the final quarter. Waubonsee scored 40 seconds later, but never again.
Lake Forest used aggressive play to keep the Warriors away from the net for the remainder of the fourth quarter until Sam Moran added an insurance goal - also his second - for the Scouts with 3 minutes, 23 seconds left to play.
Sophomore David Glynn also scored a pair of goals, while John Poth added one.
Lake Forest previously advanced to the state semifinals in 2009 and lost to Loyola in overtime. This will be the Scouts first appearance in the finals since 1998.
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