The Upper Montgomery Lightning take on the Quince Orchard Cougars on Friday night at 10:00 pm at Cabin John Ice Rink. The Lightning will be looking to bounce back from their season opening 3-2 loss to the Rockville/Magruder Rams. It will be a tough task facing the defending Montgomery Hockey Conference regular season champion Cougars.
Quince Orchard is coming off an 11-0 drubbing of the Wilson Stars. The Cougars were led by high flying junior forward Joshua Weitzman who scored seven goals in their opener. Junior Daniel Abarjel added three assists and Dylan Eyster tallied one goal and two assists. Sophomore goalie Ryan Stillwell made two saves for the shutout. The Cougars outshot the Stars 42-2 in a game that was never in doubt as Quince Orchard jumped out to a 6-0 lead after the first period.
The Cougars are not just a one-person team. Quince Orchard has multiple AA level travel forwards in juniors Dakota DelCamp and Dylan Eyester. On defense, the Cougars lineup is stacked with more AA level travel talent in Junior John Sherikjian and sophomores Braden Newell and Dylan Smith. Expected to start in net for the Cougars on Friday evening is Junior AA goalie Jeremy Eager.
Making the task more difficult for the Lightning will be the absences of young and skilled offensive forwards Ryan Jacobson and Olivia Robbins. Both student athletes will be missing the conference game due to out-of-town travel team commitments.
In net for the Lightning will be the season debut of goalie Will Mellen. Will just recently joined the Lightning for the 2021-2022 season. The team is excited for his arrival and quality play in net. Will also competes for an outside AA travel team, the Ashburn Extreme. Also returning to the lineup on Friday evening for the Lightning will be junior defender George Benedick. Benedick missed the season opener versus Rockville/Magruder.
Looking to follow up on their good defensive effort in the opening game versus the Rams, the Lightning defensive core will need to pay particular attention to the Cougars top end offensive talent and clog up the high danger areas in front of Mellen. Leading the way in addition to Benedick will be Ethan Hockey, Andrew Gean, Andrew Botti, and dual threat James Botti who may also see playing time at forward during the game. The Upper Montgomery offense will once again be led by its young forward core of Chris Hassett, Hunter Cameron, Brad Cupples, Nathan Cassel, and Brandon Bernard. Expected to see an increased role at forward during the game will be Stephen Shkeda, Adarsh Nair, Josh Nadler, and Henry Honacki.
Last season the Cougars dominated the Lightning in a 7-0 victory that was not as close as the score would indicate. An outstanding performance by Hall of Fame goalie Jonas Clark kept the score respectable making spectacular save after save. It was an effort for the short-handed Lightning just to clear the defensive zone and mount an offensive attack. The coaching staff will be looking for a much more competitive outing on Friday evening giving the team momentum as the Lightning move into the middle portion of their intra-division schedule. Some very winnable games are upcoming during the month of November.