The Upper Montgomery Lightning varsity squad enters the last few games of the regular season with all of its pre-season goals still within reach. Although the first portion of the regular season did not go as anticipated, the Lightning have played much better of late. The team has a 3-2-1 record over its last six games with the only losses to perennial powerhouse Churchill and the top public high school team in the state of Maryland, Oakdale. The Lightning had a one to zero lead on Oakdale with five minutes remaining in the game before conceding two late powerplay goals, including a five on three advantage. The team comes into the final regular season conference games on a roll having beaten fourth ranked Whitman and also top ranked Walter Johnson. The team enters the final stretch of regular season games with an overall record of 3-8-1 while being 3-5-1 in conference play.
Upper Montgomery’s goalies have struggled in net all season long. Senior Landon Bernard has played much better of late. His goals against average for the season is shrinking. He has posted a 2.16 goals against average over his last six appearances. His save percentage is climbing. Over his past six games Bernard has a stalwart .916 save percentage. Upper Montgomery will only go as far in the upcoming conference playoffs as Bernard’s play takes the team. Ninth grade goalie Ilan Shterenberg has a bright future in the program. He has played in four varsity games this season after dominating at the junior varsity level. He has two wins, including his first career victory over the Walter Johnson Wildcats.
Upper Montgomery had hoped this season for balanced goal scoring throughout its lineup. Last season’s top line of Chris Hassett, Nathan Cassel, and Philip Shkeda has continued to produce again this season. Unfortunately, it has been a continual search for other student athletes to step up and match last year’s offensive production. Hassett (13GP, 10G, 14A) and Cassell (12GP, 8G, 15A) have alternated the team lead in assists and points throughout the season. Shkeda (14GP, 10G, 3A) is tied for the team lead in goals. The season ending injury to Ryan Jacobson (6GP, 4G, 1A) has drastically impacted the Lightning’s secondary offense. Hunter Cameron has chipped in nicely with (11GP, 5G, 3A). He has scored two goals in two different games, and Cameron scored the tying goal late in the third period against the DC Stars. Each of the team’s other forwards, Brandon Bernard (14G, 5G, 3A) with goals in his past two games, Bradley Cupples (11GP, 2G, 5A), Olivia Robbins (7GP, 2G, 1A), and Henry Honacki (14GP, 5G, 3A) have each played well in a few games where they have accumulated the majority of their points on the season. The top depth forwards called upon to play in varsity game action have all stepped up and played well lately. Junior Josh Nadler, senior Adam Levine, and ninth grade forward Aiden Zheng have all contributed important assists lately in limited game action. Their hustle and adherence to the coaches’ game plan has infused some energy into the lineup.
On defense the Lightning have played better lately after struggling through the early portion of the season. With top defender Andrew Botti out for the first eight games of the season, Upper Montgomery had difficulty keeping teams out of the high danger areas. With Botti back, the team has given up far fewer goals, and only two goals while he has been on the ice at even strength. Senior co-captain Cameron has played several games on defense to help anchor and provide stability on the back end. Sophomores Brady Berkhammer and Owen Robbins have been playing together as a regular pairing all season seeing substantial playing time in all phases. Ninth grade defender Miles Wendland and junior Cole Howerton have also seen game action with their time on ice increasing as the season has gone on. Outside of Cameron’s production in October’s season opener against Whitman where he scored both Upper Montgomery goals, all other Upper Montgomery defensive skaters have contributed no goals and fourteen assists in 59 combined games played. Getting shots through from the points and contributions offensively from the defense will definitely help the team.
The main achilles heel for the Lightning has been a dreadfully awful powerplay. The Lightning have not scored at all this season when on a traditional powerplay with the extra skater, currently sitting at 0-37 on the season. The team’s only ‘powerplay’ goal was scored on a penalty shot converted by Nathan Cassell against Good Counsel. Anticipate personnel changes as well as a change to the powerplay structure in the games ahead.
The Lightning have a few games left in the regular season before the program defining Montgomery Hockey Conference playoffs begin at the start of February. The Upper Montgomery program had very high expectations for this season after the conclusion to last year and with so many highly talented student athletes returning. Fortunately, the team’s primary goal remains attainable. The Lightning still have a great opportunity to make the state playoffs, but it will take complete team dedication, playing hockey the right way, dogged puck support all over the ice, a 1000% commitment to team defense, and making good decisions that will put the team on the precipice of history.
Going into the season, the junior varsity was expected to be better than last year with the team needing talented 9th grade goaltender Ilan Shterenberg to be a difference maker in net. The junior varsity games were expected to be lower scoring as the team used its defensive strength to focus on preventing the opposition from scoring. This is exactly how the season played out. Shterenberg played excellent in net for the junior varsity this season. His finished the regular season with an 8-0-1 record and three shutouts. He gave up more than two goals in a game only twice, one time when playing against Churchill 2’s varsity squad. Shterenberg finished the season with a .927 save percentage and a tidy 1.80 goals against average. His played admirably in net during the junior varsity quarterfinal playoff game against BCC.
The other core reasons for the junior varsity’s 8-0-1 undefeated regular season were the team’s leadership and team defensive play. The junior varsity was not worried about who scored the goals and how the game looked visually. Some of the games were downright awful from an artistic sense, but played right into the Lightning’s strategy of getting the other teams frustrated. Once frustrated, the other teams took risks opening up for Upper Montgomery to counter attack. The junior varsity worked hard each game and focused on defense only giving up 22 goals in its eleven game season. The penalty kill was a perfect 27-27 on the season (when not using a position skater in net) including a couple of long five on three kills and a five minute major powerplay against.
The Lightning junior varsity finished the regular season second in the conference standings, a half game behind Wootton. Unfortunately, finishing second matched the junior varsity against the one team that was not truly a bottom team in the conference. Having to face BCC in the quarterfinal round of the junior varsity playoffs, was just an awful draw. BCC uses a strategy in the regular season of not playing all of their top available junior varsity students. Then, when playoff time comes, all of their top skaters are dressed, and the top talent receives an over abundance of ice time in the playoff games. Thus, playing against the only ‘bottom’ team with a chance at advancing, the Lightning junior varsity lost in the quarterfinal round to BCC, four to one. The 2023 – 2024 junior varsity squad did set an Upper Montgomery program record for most wins in a season with nine. The team’s overall record of 9-1-1 was the team highest winning percentage, .863.
The junior varsity’s offense scored just enough with the team averaging 3.91 goals per game, aided by the ten goals scored against Oakdale. Junior TJ Gottesman (9GP, 11G, 5A) and junior co-captain Josh Nadler (10GP, 11G, 1A) led the team in goals with eleven. Gottesman was the team’s top point getter with sixteen. Senior co-captain Adam Levine (11GP, 3G, 8A) lead the team in assists. He finished one assist off the program record for assists in a season while he did set the program record with points in consecutive games at seven straight games. Levine also proved to be awesome in the faceoff circle winning over 70% of his faceoffs with seven Lightning goals scored directly off of faceoff wins. The team’s depth scoring picked up as the season went on with junior Cole Howerton (10GP, 5G, 4A), senior Sean Levine (11GP, 3G, 5A), junior AJ Marks (9GP, 3G, 4A), and ninth grade forward Aiden Zheng (11GP, 4G, 2A) chipping in and contributing. Jason Woodman had a three assist game against Oakdale to increase his scoring to (10GP, 1G, 4A). Sean Levine scored a pretty breakaway goal against the DC Stars deking to his backhand before lifting the puck. He also scored the Lightning’s only goal in the playoff game against BCC. Adam Levine’s dazzling push through, walk around, far side, top shelf marker also in the DC Stars game was the goal of the season for the program.
Defensively, the Lightning’s experience and team defense stood out. Jake Roth, Cole Howerton, Patrick Sell, Miles Wendland, Avery Evans (8GP, 1G, 4A), and Behr Schickler limited the opposition’s quality scoring chances. When breakdowns occurred, the forwards were routinely in position defensively to block shots and clear the high danger areas getting pucks out of the defensive zone. The combination allowed the Lightning to play with the lead or tied for most of the entire season. The team competed with maximum effort, commitment to each other, and with the stellar defensive play. It was this attitude that allowed the junior varsity to thrive all season long culminating with an undefeated regular season.
#Playoff Wins, #Our Time, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!