The Upper Montgomery Lightning junior varsity team will be back in action this Thursday afternoon taking on the Richard Montgomery Rockets at Laurel Ice Gardens. Game time is 4:20 pm.
The Lightning will be looking to build on Monday’s 3-2 season opening victory over BCC. It will be a tough task versus the more experienced Rockets who handled Churchill easily by a score of 6-0 in their season opener last week.
Offensively, the Lightning are led by 9th grade forward Josh Nadler who scored two goals in the junior varsity’s opener. The team will be looking for more balanced scoring as the first line was on the ice and contributed to all three goals scored against BCC. Junior defender George Benedick starting the scoring at the very end of the first period. Nadler added a goal each in both the second and the third period. In goal for the Lightning will be Landon Bernard. Bernard will be counted to shut down the Rockets and keep the Lightning in the game. The Lightning will likely have only three true defenders for the match up against the Rockets. Expect a forward or two to drop back and play some shifts on defense.
The Rockets are led by Juniors Nicholas Saffell, who scored a hat-trick and added an assist versus Churchill, and Tyler Senko, who contributed one goal and two assists. Noe Masurel contributed one goal and one assist versus Churchill from his position on defense while helping Ian Hutchinson secure a 12-save shutout in net.
The young Lightning squad will be challenged by the more experienced and mature Rockets. This is a good early season test to see how the team stacks up against what is likely to be a Rockets team in the running for the junior varsity regular season championship.