LAKE FOREST, Ill. - The University of Dubuque men's lacrosse team made their second consecutive appearance in the Midwest Lacrosse Conference Championship on Saturday as they traveled to Lake Forest College to take on the #1 seed Foresters. The Spartans would hold an early lead and lead at the half, but it was the Foresters in the final minutes tying the game with 1:25 to play and then grabbing the late lead in the closing seconds to defeat the Spartans 10-9. 

In the last two meetings between the Spartans and Foresters, the games have been within two goals as the Spartans took home the MLC Tournament Championship 11-10 a year ago in overtime and the Foresters won the regular season matchup 16-14 this season. 

The Foresters would strike first in the first quarter with 10:25 left in the quarter to snag the early lead. Parker Hahne would then respond 15 seconds later with an unassisted goal to even the score at 1-1. The Spartans would grab their first lead of the game with 5:48 remaining in the opening quarter leading 2-1. Todd then scored back-to-back with a goal 44 seconds later to lead by two scores. Quentin Evans and Giovanni Silva would each add a goal in the opening quarter to help the Spartans to a 5-2 advantage after one quarter. 

The beginning of the second quarter belonged to the Foresters as they added two goals in the first 2:15 to cut the Spartans lead to 5-4. At the 9:27 mark Silva would get a shot past the Forester's goalie to give the Spartans a two goal lead again at 6-4. The Foresters kept the game back and forth as they added two unanswered goals to even the game at 6-6 with 4:28 to play before halftime. Silva was not done before the half as he added his third goal at 3:13 to give the Spartans the 7-6 lead at the break. 

With 13 goals scored in the first half, the second half belonged more on the defensive side of the ball. Kyle Hephner scored his lone goal to open the third quarter to get the Spartans lead back to two goals. The Foresters answered again with two more goals to end the third quarter all even at 8-8 entering the final quarter of the MLC Championship. 

In the fourth quarter, the Spartans would score once and it would come with nine minutes left in the game off a wild sequence in which Todd shot the ball and was saved by the Foresters goalie, but he was unable to keep it in his net as Silva picked it up and scored into a wide open net. The two Forester goals in the quarter would now show until there was only 1:25 left in the game tying the game at 9-9 and then a late goal with only three seconds left ended the Spartans season as the Foresters won the MLC Championship 10-9. 

Silva led the Spartans with four goals on seven shots. Todd had two scores and an assist to finish with three points. Ryan Doyle forced seven Forester turnovers and grabbed 14 ground balls. Nikolas Wortman finished with 10 ground balls after going 11-19 on faceoffs. In his final game as a Spartan, George Smirl played the entire game allowing 10 goals and securing 12 saves in the close loss. 

The Spartans end their 2023 season 10-8 overall and finished second in the MLC regular season and conference tournament.