LAKE FOREST, Ill.. – The Lakeland University men's basketball team got in a shootout in its season opener but came out on the wrong end of a 114-102 defeat at Lake Forest (Ill.) College Wednesday night.
The Muskies shot 52.9% from the field but the Foresters were even more proficient in evening the score between the two teams in season openers over the last two years. Lakeland cruised past Lake Forest 98-72 in the 2022-23 opener at home, but the Foresters held serve on their homecourt a year later.
Lake Forest took control of a close game just before halftime, scoring the Muskies 10-3 to end the first half and take a 56-47 lead into the break. The hosts continued to build the lead early in the second half, staying hot while Lakeland's scoring pace slowed, and extended the margin to 21 when Alex Forowycz hit a three-pointer to make it 79-58 with 13 minutes, 20 seconds left in the game.
The Foresters would extend the lead to as much as 23 on three occasions, and hit the 100-point mark with 5:15 left in the game on a layup by Michael Michaud for a 100-83 lead. Lakeland would finish the game on a 10-4 run, and a layup by
Jaxson Provost (
Fr.-Kankakee, Ill.) with 10 seconds left for the game's final points brought the Muskies to the closest they had been since the early minutes of the second half.
The Muskies got off to a good start to the game and led most of the game's first 12 minutes. Lakeland hit 13 of its first 18 shots from the floor, led by as much as five in the game's early stages and was ahead until Lake Forest's Coltrane Marchand hit a three-pointer for a 33-32 lead with 8:17 left in the half.
Freshman
Brayden Kennedy (
Manitowoc, Wis.) drained a three-pointer to tie the score at 38-38 with 5:24 left in the half, but the Foresters scored on their next time down and never trailed again. Lake Forest began slowly building on the lead before a spurt in the final 3:11 of the half while the Muskies cooled off late with three misses plus three turnovers in the final three minutes of the half.
Cam Jaeger (
Jr.-Sheboygan, Wis.) scored 23 points to lead five players scoring in double figures for Lakeland. Kennedy scored 19 points off the bench in his debut, hitting 5 of 7 from three-point range,
Isaiah Hammond (
Jr.-Milwaukee, Wis.) scored 18 points,
Asanjai Hunter (
So.-Racine, Wis.) chipped in 15 and
Kai Buliox (
Jr.-Milwaukee, Wis.) added 14 points.
The Muskies made 36 of 68 shots from the field and hit better than 50% in both halves. Lake Forest hit at a 53.8% rate for the game, though, making 43 of 80 shots including 13 of 28 from three-point range (46.4%). Forowycz scored 27 points to lead three Foresters scoring at least 20, and Michaud added 15 points plus a game-high 17 rebounds.
Lakeland goes on the road again for its next game for what promises to be another game that will keep the scoreboard operators busy at Greenville (Ill.) University Friday night at 7 p.m. The Muskies defeated the perennial NCAA Division III scoring champion Panthers 155-127 last season in the highest-scoring game in Lakeland program history.
