Lake Forest Closes Gap Between State's Elite Program

6-2 setback to New Trier in Tuesday’s quarterfinals of the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association State tourney will mean the additional loss of a productive and influential senior class.

“I feel for my seniors, I’m never going to have a senior class like this again,” Lake Forest coach Dan Maigler said. “I’m never going to have guys like these again.”

Save for the fourth quarter, the Scouts played New Trier, the six-time defending state champion, even for most of the contest in Winnetka. Earlier in the season, , indicating the gap has closed between the two programs.

“Compared to the last couple years with the help of the coaches, we’ve come a long way with how we are with the community and with our season,” Lake Forest senior midfielder Matt Sapp said. “We won a lot more games than last year.”

And the opportunity to keep the momentum going from this season’s 13-6 overall, 8-0 conference mark is there. For example, junior goalie Ethan Ulmer finished with 11 saves, including eight in the first half. One of the Scouts’ two goals was scored by junior Jack Wright.

Wright’s goal came with 2:33 left in the third quarter to knot the score at 2-2 heading into the final quarter.

But New Trier took over from there, scoring three goals in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to put the game away. Lake Forest looked worn down as New Trier controlled a vast majority of groundballs in the second half. The Trevians also won seven of eight draw controls in the second half, not allowing Lake Forest to get into its offense.

“We have to get the ball on offense and we have to finish our shots and that’s what wasn’t happening for us,” Lake Forest coach Dan Maigler said. “We didn’t get to put them on the defensive because our shots weren’t going in the back of the net.”

Lake Forest staked a 10-0 halftime lead thanks to a goal from with 1:43 left in the second quarter. The senior star took a couple steps to his right, before quickly cutting back left and firing a left-handed shot past New Trier’s Jack Connelly.

Ulmer and the Scout defense had kept New Trier at bay in the first half, denying the Trevians' two man-advantage opportunities in the first four minutes of the game. At the end of a Trevian possession that lasted for more than two minutes midway through the second quarter, Ulmer made a great save on New Trier’s Chris Laackman. With two minutes to go, Ulmer came up big again, stopping Trevian attacker Chad Sawyer on an open opportunity in close.

“We had a lot of intensity, we were more into it and coaches were calming us down and telling us to do our job and that’s what we were doing,” Sapp said.

But New Trier responded quickly coming out of halftime. Mick Parks found Charlie Carothers with a nice pass from behind the net and Carothers beat Ulmer upstairs to tie the game with 10:30 to go in the third quarter. Less than two minutes later it was Carothers again, this time with a lefty bounce shot from the perimeter.

“Some of that comes back from our depth,” New Trier coach Tom Herrala said. “We started to open it up at the end of the second quarter and as the third quarter wore on we started getting some shots and putting them in the back of the cage.”