The Upper Montgomery Lightning junior varsity team returns to action on Saturday night versus Quince Orchard/Sherwood’s combined team. Game time is 6:30 pm at Cabin John Ice Rink. This will be the junior varsity’s first league game in almost five weeks and is against one of the top teams in the league. Quince Orchard/Sherwood is 2-0 on the season and has outscored its opponents by a margin of 9-1. An unknown for both teams will be how many junior varsity eligible student athletes will miss the game due to conflicts with travel team game competitions.
In net for the Lightning will be Landon Bernard, fresh off his first varsity victory last Friday night over the West Virginia Vipers. Bernard’s performance in net was his most complete effort for Upper Montgomery. He will need to be strong in goal once again for the Lightning to win on Saturday evening.
On defense the Lightning will likely dress four defenders. George Benedick will play down from varsity to be a stabilizing influence for the young Lightning junior varsity defense of Patrick Sell and Cole Howerton. Stephen Shkeda will also play down from his varsity forward position and play defense Saturday night. Pairings are expected to be Benedick with Sell and Howerton with Shkeda. The defense will be looking to slow down the Quince Orchard/Sherwood forward tandem of Daniel Arbajel, John Sherikjian, and Clark Atkinson which have tallied six of their nine goals.
Offensively, the Lightning need someone other than ‘Josh’ to score. Of the junior varsity forwards, only Josh Nadler (three goals) and Josh Miller (two goals) have tallied this season. The team has three additional goals scored by varsity student athletes playing down. The experienced Lightning junior varsity forward group of Adam Levine, James Hyman, Lucas Eyman, Adarsh Nair, and Henry Honacki will need to step up and help better distribute the scoring responsibilities. Inexperienced netminder Ryan Stillwell will be in goal for the Quince Orchard/Sherwood team. He has won his first two junior varsity starts but has not been heavily challenged. If the Lightning skate with purpose and compete, it should be an evenly played, hard fought, and low scoring game on Saturday.