The Upper Montgomery Lightning junior varsity ran its record to an undefeated 4-0 on the season with a 4-2 non-conference victory over the Rockville Rams Wednesday afternoon at Cabin John Ice Rink. While pleased with the victory, the junior varsity played down to the level of the Rams. The game against the winless Rams wound up being more evenly matched than anticipated before Upper Montgomery’s superior talent eventually delivered the victory. It is a theme that has developed early in the season, against the better competition the Lightning have responded and have competed hard and played well. Against lesser competition, the team has lacked the intensity necessary to control the games and win easily. The four victories equal the team’s total wins from the entirety of last season.
The game got off to an inauspicious start. Less than a minute into the game the Rams jumped to an early lead. Rams center Rowen Pierson collected the puck in his defensive zone. He raced up ice and went wide where he was shut off by the Lightning defense. Pierson was forced to carry the puck behind the net where he passed the puck in front to Ryan Hurley. Hurley got twisted up and fell down, but was able to poke the puck over to Rams defender Adam Salomon. Salomon batted a shot high stick side over a partially screened and unsuspecting Lightning netminder Ilan Shterenberg.
On the next shift, an innocent hockey play resulted in an injury to Upper Montgomery 9th grade forward Jackson Schickler. Rams forward Charles Sickel and Schickler bumped into each other a second after the puck went past. Schickler fell awkwardly and remained down on the ice. He will likely be out long-term with a lower body injury. The referees deemed the contact late and issued an interference penalty to Sickel. Upper Montgomery failed to score on the first half of the powerplay opportunity which was then cut short when Lightning forward Jason Woodman was called for tripping, negating the last minute of the Upper Montgomery skater advantage.
While killing Woodman’s penalty, Lightning center Josh Nadler was called for roughing giving the Rams an extended 5-3 advantage for over a minute and a half. Just after Nadler exited the penalty box, he took another penalty, this time for tripping. Again, the Lightning had to kill a penalty. Great penalty killing by Adam Levine, Aiden Zheng, Jake Roth, Miles Wendland, Cole Howerton, Avery Evans, and Patrick Sell kept the Rams off the board and without a shot on goal during the extended penalty killing time.
The successful penalty kills seemed to energize the Lightning. On the next shift of five on five play, Upper Montgomery would tie the game. The Rams cleared their defensive zone and sent the puck into neutral ice. The puck was corralled by Lightning defender Cole Howerton at the Upper Montgomery blue line. Howerton skated up the center of the ice into the Rams defensive zone. When he reached the high slot, he unleashed a wrist shot that went high past the glove of Rams goalie Alexander Crotzer-Scartascini tying the score at one.
Less than a minute later Upper Montgomery would jump in front for the first time in the game. Levine dumped the puck in from center ice to begin an extended shift in the Rams defensive zone. Nadler raced in and reached the puck first. Nalder passed to Lightning forward TJ Gottesman at the top of the left circle. Gottesman sent the puck to the left point to Wendland. Without a clear shooting lane, Wendland sent the puck low and back into the left corner where the puck was retrieved by Levine. Levine passed the puck over to Nadler. Nadler curled out of the corner and shot wide from a bad angle. The puck went off the boards in the right corner and around to the right point where Sell kept the puck in at the blue line. Sell sent the puck back down the boards and around the net where Levine controlled the puck once again. Drawing the defense, Levine passed the puck over into the left corner for Nadler. Nadler returned the puck to Levine who had moved a few strides to the left of the net behind the goal line. After Nadler dished the puck, he cut to the left faceoff circle where Levine executed a sweet give and go pass. From the lower portion of the circle Nadler wasted no time and riffled a wrist shot five hole on Crotzer-Scartascini. It was as impressive an offensive shift as the junior varsity has had all season.
Now up 2-1 with five minutes remaining in the first period, Upper Montgomery stopped pressing and reverted back to how it started the game. The intensity seemed to leave the Lightning’s play once Upper Montgomery had taken the lead. It also let Rockville tie the score. Off of a poor turnover just inside the Rams defensive blue line, Rockville counter attacked. With Levine and Nadler already in the offensive zone anticipating a pass and the Lightning defense moving up ice, the puck was turned over on a selfish individual play. Calder Wilcox stole the puck and sent it up ice to Hurley steaking through the neutral zone behind the Upper Montgomery defense. Skating hard, the Lightning defense caught up to Hurley. With all skaters focusing on Hurley and an expected shot on goal, instead Hurley circled around the net. His feed out front found an unguarded Pierson cutting down the slot. Pierson’s slap shot went high glove side past Shterenberg re-tying the game, this time at two.
The first period concluded with Rockville excited to be tied and Upper Montgomery feeling lucky to be tied, having had to kill three Rams powerplays and playing poorly in front of Shterenberg. For Shterenberg it was his worst performance of the season making only one save in the period. Shaking off the poor period, Shterenberg settled down and stonewalled the Rams over the final two periods of play. The second period saw the Rams fire ten shots at Shterenberg and continue to play competitively despite their 0-5 record.
Halfway through the second period Wilcox was called for interference, a penalty that would allow Upper Montgomery to take the lead for good. Nadler collected the puck along the side boards on the left wing. He pushed the play up ice entering the offensive zone. Nadler passed the puck down the wing to Zheng in the left wing circle before charging down the slot toward the net. Zheng sent a shot / return pass to the front of the net where Nadler deflected the puck from just outside the crease in between Crotzer-Scartascini’s leg pads.
At the very end of the second period, Nadler was back in the penalty box, once again having been called for roughing. In taking his third penalty of the game, Nadler was benched by the coaching staff, not because of the penalties, or his play, but because receiving a fourth penalty in a game results in an automatic one game suspension. To prevent that possibility, the Upper Montgomery program has a policy of sitting student athletes after three penalties received in a given game. With AJ Marks unavailable to play, and with Schickler’s injury early in the game, and now with Nadler out for the remainder of the game, it fell on a shortened bench of Lightning skaters and Shterenberg to play rock solid defense to secure the victory.
It started with the fourth successful Upper Montgomery penalty kill. Then, the Lightning went to four defensive skaters with Roth and Sell playing together as one pairing and Wendland and Evans playing together as the other pairing. Howerton was moved up to play forward. Levine went from playing wing to centering Zheng and Gottesman. Sean Levine centered Howerton and Woodman. The coaching changes and the focus on defensive limited the Rams to only four shots on goal in the third period. A period where they were trying to claw back and tie the game.
Howerton would provide some breathing room with just under eight minutes remaining in the game. After a Rams clear to neutral ice, Woodman tussled with a Rams skater along the left wing boards. Neither skater touched the puck, but the commotion allowed Howerton to grab the puck and re-enter the offensive zone down the left wing. From the left faceoff circle he fired near side, seven hole past Crotzer-Scartascini’s body to provide a small bit of breathing room for the Lightning.
The final minutes of the game saw the Lightning continuously clear the defensive zone, take short shifts to keep up their energy, and focus entirely on shutting off all Rockville offensive thrusts. It was a style similar to the third period of the season opening victory over Whitman. The Lightning’s effort intensified and kept the Rams at bay until the very closing seconds where Sheterenberg made a fine save on Pierson from in close eliminating any final upset gasp by Rockville.
Up next for the Lightning junior varsity is a non-conference matchup against the Urbana Hawks just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. Upper Montgomery will need to bring a much better effort in order to be victorious over Urbana. Upper Montgomery will be shorthanded for the matchup as the team is dealing with a couple of injuries and a few other medical situations.
Game Notes:
- The victory over the Rams was the junior varsity’s fourth consecutive victory to start the season.
- Shots on goal for the game were even, Upper Montgomery with 18 and Rockville with 17.
- Josh Nadler scored for the fourth consecutive game. He has scored in each game this season.
- Upper Montgomery went 4-4 on the penalty kill and is now a perfect 13-13 on the season.
- Upper Montgomery scored a powerplay goal for the second consecutive game and is now 2-13 on the season, 15.4%.
- Upper Montgomery junior varsity returns to game action on Monday afternoon, November 20th in a non-conference matchup against Urbana. Game time is 4:00 pm at Skate Frederick.
Three Stars of the Game:
First Star—Josh Nadler—Upper Montgomery Center—2 Goals
Second Star—Cole Howerton—Upper Montgomery Defense—2 Goals
Third Star—Rowen Pierson—Rockville Center—1 Goal, 1 Assist