A phrase that many have probably heard around campus—“respecting the shuffle”— is one that only the Lake Forest College football team will understand. But from an outside viewpoint, this stands as a goal for the team to go 1-0 every week.
That is exactly what the team has done the last three weeks. From dominating Beloit, to Carleton, and then to Cornell College, the football team is 3-0 and viewing every day as a building block in order to achieve their goal of winning Conference.
“The overarching goal is to win conference,” offensive lineman Tom Steen ’18 said. “But to do that, we have to go 1-0 every practice, every film session, every rehab session, and every game.”
Starting from the first game of the year when the Beloit Buccaneers stepped foot in the forest, our football team was ready to begin the new season. With a 34-20 victory over the Buccaneers, running back Joey Valdivia ‘17 ran for 223 yards and scored three touchdowns to put the Foresters out on top.
As it was the first game of the year, Valdivia said he was definitely “feeling excited, but more than anything [he thinks] making it through camp and taking care of [his] body really helped [his] confidence.”
Following the Beloit game, the Foresters headed to Minnesota to face the Carleton Knights, where the team defeated the Knights 41-21. The offense made their fourth-highest-single-game total in program history, racking up 555 yards. Although the team continues to improve and make history each and every game, there is one thing the team cannot forget.
As a freshman coming into the program and experiencing a 3-0 season to start, Bobby Inman ’20 says, “We cannot let winning get to us. We need to worry about the next game and continue to stay focused on all sides of the ball.”
The third game was still on the road, but this time in a new direction. The team traveled to Cornell College in Iowa, which is home of the Rams. The Foresters pulled out a big win, defeating the Rams 55-13.
Being a young team this year, junior Steen believes credits the team’s “very strong team chemistry. We were a young team last year and we experienced both sides of a beat down. Now that we have matured together, there is a stronger family atmosphere on the team, which allows us to play for each other.”
The start to this year has definitely motivated the team to keep pushing forward in order to achieve their goal. According to linebacker Pat McDonaugh ’18, “We are a young team that is starting to play together in every aspect of the game.”
