The Quince Orchard Cougars escaped last Friday night with a hard fought 2-1 victory over the Upper Montgomery Lightning. The defending regular season conference champion Cougars received all they could handle from the young, pesky Lightning squad before eventually prevailing and securing two important points in the division standings.
It was a physical contest throughout. The first period saw heavy hitting and five different roughing penalties handed out. The majority of the period was spent with either the Lightning or the Cougars on the power play. Both teams excelled on the penalty kill and stymied chance after chance. Both teams had three power play opportunities falter with the Lightning having a 5 on 3 power play for over a minute. The first period ended scoreless due to the excellent play of the Lightning defense stifling the high powered Cougars. When Cougars offensively gifted forwards Joshua Weitzman and Dylan Eyester were able to find some space, Will Mellen, playing in his first game for the Lightning, shut the door and made many difficult saves look easy.
Early in the second period the Lightning jumped out to the lead. Defender James Botti fought along the boards and won a puck battle sending the puck deep into the Cougars defensive zone. The puck was corralled by Chris Hassett toward the left side of the net. Hassett’s centering feed into the slot was gathered in by Nathan Cassel who fired a quick wrist shot by Cougars goalie Jeremy Eager. It was Cassel’s team leading second goal of the season and gave him goals in back-to-back games for the 9th grade sniper. Soon after the Lightning took the lead, the parade to the penalty box began again. Mirroring the first period, both teams had multiple power play opportunities in the second period. The last Quince Orchard penalty to Joshua Weitzman turned out to be the turning point in the game. Just ten seconds after Weitzman went to the penalty box for roughing, gifted Cougars forward Dylan Eyester went end to end with the puck before finally tucking a shot past Mellen to tie the game at one.
With just 33 seconds left in the second period the Cougars would strike again. After an icing brought the faceoff back into the Lightning defensive zone, the Cougars controlled the puck before Dakota Delcamp eventually found Weitzman at the far post. It was an easy tap in goal for Weitzman off the cross ice feed as he had snuck in behind the Lightning defense. Weitzman’s league leading 8th goal of the season giving the Cougars a lead they would look to protect in the third period.
In the third period Upper Montgomery generated more shots on goal, ten, then they had in the previous two periods combined, eight. However, every Lightning chance was turned away by Eager and the Cougars experienced defense. As disappointing as the outcome of the game was for the young Lightning squad, the difference between last year’s game with Quince Orchard, a 7-0 shutout victory for the Cougars (the final score was not indicative of how lopsided the game really was) the Lighting were very competitive against what will likely turn out to be the top team in the division.
Coming off of two one goal losses, the Lightning will look to earn their first win and standings points of the season versus Blair.
Game Notes:
- The start of the game was delayed by 20 minutes, the result of a full-team bench clearing brawl at the end of the BCC vs St. John’s game.
- Joshua Weitzman scored his league leading 8th goal of the season.
- Quince Orchard outshot the Lightning 29-18.
- Power Plays—Lightning 0-6, Cougars 0-6.
- Andrew Botti had a game high 14 penalty minutes.
- The Lightning have given up short handed goals in back-to-back games.
- Will Mellen stopped 27 of 29 shots on goal.
- The Lightning are next in action on Friday, November 5th at 8:50 pm facing the Blair Blazers at Rockville Ice Arena.
Three Stars of the Game:
First Star—Joshua Weitzman #36—Quince Orchard Forward—Game Winning Goal
Second Star—Will Mellen #31—Upper Montgomery Goalie–27 saves, .931 save %
Third Star—Dylan Eyester #71—Quince Orchard Forward—Short Handed Goal