The start of the 2023 – 2024 high school ice hockey season has been one to forget for the Upper Montgomery Lightning varsity squad and pleasantly surprising for the Lightning junior varsity squad. 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. Unfortunately, qualifying for the state playoffs for the first time in program history seems like a distant vision unless the team comes together, plays as a team, and goes on an epic run. There has been too much individual play, too much worrying about everything but winning, and the team’s performance has suffered as a result.
The Lightning varsity squad sits winless at 0-6 on the season. There have been some stretches of good play, but overall, the only consistency to the season has been the limited amount of student athletes available each game due to external travel team commitments and Andrew Botti’s injury. Upper Montgomery has had its full complement of offensive forward lines for only two games this season. Being able to run three full lines allows the student athletes sufficient rest to compete hard over the entire game. Not surprisingly then, the third periods have been Upper Montgomery’s downfall with the team having a minus twelve goal differential in the final period over the first six games of the season.
Three troubling trends have developed over the first portion of the season. One, a lack of goal scoring. This seems to have been rectified in two of the past three games, a 9-7 loss to Sherwood and a 7-5 loss to Mount St. Joseph. The second issue is the poor finishes mentioned above. Not having a full roster has placed a burden on the student athletes present at each game and they have run out of steam deep into the games. The third issue and the most glaring have been the defensive breakdowns. This may be a result of the top skaters having to play excessive minutes each game as the team has played with a short bench throughout the season. It may be playing without top defender Andrew Botti for the entire season. It may be that the defensive skaters have just not been good enough. It is no secret that the top teams in the county prevent goals. A look at the standings this season as well as last season show a dramatic difference in all teams’ records when giving up three or fewer goals in a game. Quite simply, the Upper Montgomery defensive lapses and breakdowns have been awful and are the leading contributor to the 0-6 start.
Upper Montgomery’s offensive success can be defined by how well the offensive leaders of the team perform. Nathan Cassel leads the team with 6GP, 4G, 6A. He is coming off of a three point effort versus Mount St. Joseph, including converting on a penalty shot goal. Chris Hassett’s production has led the Lightning program for the past two seasons, and he is once again contributing. He is second on the team in scoring with 5GP, 3G, 4A. Ryan Jacobson has scored three goals in four games, bouncing back and forth between centering the second line and playing defense. Philip Shkeda is heating up having scored in three straight games. The difficulty for the Lightning has been getting the offense going especially against the top teams in the conference, scoring twice against Whitman, once against the DC Stars, and twice against BCC. Depth scoring from the second and third lines has been very limited with many of the team’s forwards either underperforming or having all of their scoring centralized in the Sherwood game. Consistent depth scoring would dramatically advance the Lightning’s chances over the second half of the season.
Defensively, and in goal, the team must be significantly better. Yes, the team has had to patch together the defensive pairings while working through the injury to Botti, but the defensive blunders have been plentiful and massive. Most of the miscues have led directly to key opposition goals against. The forwards need to do a better job on the backcheck and with breakouts, controlling the game with puck possession and puck management. The defense must be more physical and not allow the opposing forwards down low beneath them with unobstructed looks at the goal.
If the poor performances do not change quickly expect the coaching staff to provide more playing time to the younger student athletes that have thus far historically played the majority of their high school hockey career at the junior varsity level. When the back half of the varsity schedule flips and the Lightning are facing less talented opposition, the lower portion of the roster will be more capable of receiving playing time and will push the top skaters for playing time. While the depth of the Lightning’s roster should have been able to handle one or two student athletes missing a game here or there, the team has not stepped up and performed.
In net for Upper Montgomery Landon Bernard has had stretches of nice play this season sprinkled in with goals that he wishes he had back. The team knows what Bernard is capable of with last season’s playoff performance as a benchmark of how good he can play. The Lightning will need to see more of that shut down goaltending to have a successful back half of the season.
Going into the season, the junior varsity was expected to be better than last year with the team needing 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 has played out. Shterenberg has played very well for the junior varsity this season having won all four of his starts and having posted two shutouts to begin his high school career. His season statistics are a .940 save percentage and a 1.03 goals against average. In limited action last week against Mount St. Joseph at the varsity level he stopped 16 of 18 shots on goal. Anticipate Shterenberg seeing additional varsity game action as the coaching staff gets him experience as preparation for next season. His play in net will ultimately determine how successful the team is and how far the Lightning junior varsity advances in the junior varsity county playoffs. He has the talent and ability to steal any game by himself.
The core reason for the junior varsity’s 4-0 undefeated start to the season has been the team’s leadership and team defensive play. Unlike what may be occurring with the varsity, the junior varsity is not worried about who scores and how the game looks visually. The junior varsity has worked hard each game and has focused on defense only giving up four goals over the first four games of the season. The penalty kill has been a perfect 13-13 on the season including a couple of long 5-3 kills.
Offensively, the coaching staff knew it would be a mixed bag. Some games it was anticipated that the squad would generate offensive much more capably than last season. Other games, it was thought to still be extremely difficult to mount much of an attack. This is because the team has no one individual skater that can take over a game by themselves and propel the team to victory. It was going to be more of a success by committee approach and that is what has played out.
Josh Nadler has led the way scoring in each of the first four games of the season. He leads the team with five goals. Cole Howerton has scored three goals in the first four games of the season. TJ Gottesman also has four points on two goals and two assists. Sean Levine has three points, and the depth scoring has started to come through. AJ Marks and Aiden Zheng have played better over the past couple of games, and both have two points. Adam Levine has chipped in with two assists, both on nice passing plays with Nadler finishing on each occasion. The offense has been just enough with the team averaging 3.5 goals per game.
Defensively, the Lightning’s experience and team defense has stood out. Jake Roth, Cole Howerton, Patrick Sell, Miles Wendland, Avery Evans, and Behr Schickler have limited the opposition’s quality scoring chances. When breakdowns occur, the forwards have been in position defensively to clear the danger areas and get pucks out of the defensive zone. The combination has allowed the Lightning to play with the lead or tied for all but 8:30 of game actions this season. The maximum effort displayed so far and the commitment to each other combined with the stellar defensive play must continue for the team to reach its goals. It’s been a nice start, but the middle of the season needs to be strong against stronger competition to position the squad well for the season ending conference playoffs.
#Our Time, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!