Lake Forest Pulls Away from Ripon for Fifth Straight Victory

Junior guard Mike Rueffer scored a career-high 23 points to lead the Forester men's basketball team to a 78-59 victory over visiting Ripon College on Tuesday.

Rueffer, whose previous career-high of 17 points was set on Saturday at Illinois College, shot 7-for-10 from three-point range and added two points from the foul line in 38 minutes against the Red Hawks. He is just the fifth player in program history to make as many as seven three-pointers in a game.

Junior forward Jim Schick and freshman forward Danny Sotos each shot 7-for-13 from the field and were next on the Foresters with 16 points apiece. Schick also grabbed seven rebounds and dished out a game-high six assists. Junior guard Andrew Toth added 13 points off the bench and sophomore forward Orlando Brown led all players in the contest with a career-high 13 rebounds.

Lake Forest committed a season-low six turnovers while forcing 10 from Ripon. The Foresters also had a 40-31 edge in rebounds and outscored their guests 27-15 from beyond the arc and 13-6 from the free throw line.

The Foresters led by as many as a dozen point in the first half and were ahead 31-20 after a traditional three-point play by Sotos with 4:41 to play in the period. Ripon, however, scored the game's next 15 points and took a 35-33 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The Red Hawks pulled ahead by seven early in the second half before being outscored 18-2 by the Foresters during a four-minute span. The home team's lead reached double figures midway through the period. A Ripon basket with 4:53 remaining trimmed the margin to eight points but the Lake Forest defense held the Red Hawks scoreless the rest of the way.

The Foresters have won five consecutive games and are now 8-4 overall this season. They have also moved a half-game ahead of Ripon for third place in the Midwest Conference standings with a league record of 6-2. The Red Hawks fell to 8-6 overall and 6-3 in the conference.

Lake Forest will host Grinnell College Saturday afternoon at 1:00.