Despite the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Lake Forest Boys Lacrosse team has been firing on all cylinders this offseason with a record of 15-1 and a recent tournament win in Franksville, Wisconsin.

For the Lake Forest Boys Lacrosse team, they have pushed the old ways behind them and begun a “New Breed of Scout lacrosse”.

With the last state championship in the program being 23 years ago, the team has changed their whole way of how they approach the game in the past two years.

During the 2018 season, the Scouts had suffered a last-second loss to New Trier, a 20-7 loss to Loyola in the regular season, and a devastating overtime loss to Glenbard North in the 2018 playoffs. These losses would haunt them daily in the coming years and after the disappointing season, the team knew they had to do more. The old ways were not going to cut it. 

Over the course of the next few months, the team got together often and discussed what they had to do differently while spending ample amounts of time on the field with each other.

“We weren’t taking steps to maximize our team’s potential”, is how junior Captain Connor Armstrong described the team’s work ethic. The organized practices and team runs were much better compared to the lazy offseasons in the past, but players still believed there was more to be done.

In February, the tryouts came along and the players’ goals were big. They had a tough schedule but seemed very optimistic about the season. Many tough practices went by but with four days left until their first game, the COVID-19 pandemic had canceled their season and the hopes for the season went down the drain. 

However, the focus quickly became next season. The team had organized practices multiple times a week as well as the team runs as often as possible. 

Lake Forest then took a trip to the Pipe City tournament in July, which would include the team’s first game together in a year and a half. The team ended up going 5-1 with a lot of potential being sprouted up by a variety of players. 

More hard work came after this tournament for the anticipation of rematching against Loyola and New Trier in the fall. The warpath mindset that former players had been trying to ingrain in our minds was finally emerging. After weeks of seven A.M. practice on top of program practices twice a week, the team felt they were ready for the fall league. 

They entered the first week of games with a pumped-up mindset and ended the day going 3-0 while beating New Trier for the first time in 10 years.

“The two seven A.M. practices the following week were very productive, and definitely gave us a great feeling about how hard we were working,” said the sophomore long-stick midfielder, Jack Carrabine.

The next Sunday came along, which had Loyola, and two other teams on the schedule. The game started off cold but after a string of 5 goals by Lake Forest, the team won the game 7-6 in overtime, beating Loyola for the first time in program history.

Although, they aren’t done yet.

 “We have a very long way to go if we want to win the whole thing,” said junior defender Ben Winebrenner.