Riding a four game winning streak and having won five of their past six games, the Upper Montgomery Lightning soar into Friday evening’s heavyweight matchup up against the second ranked Quince Orchard Cougars. This is a matchup that the team has been very much looking forward to as a gauge of just how much the team has improved. It will also be a litmus test to see if the Lightning can notch their first win in program history against a team ranked in the top five of the conference standings. However, victory will not come easy. Quince Orchard has had arguably the best season of any team in the Montgomery Hockey Conference. Quince Orchard enters Friday’s game undefeated with eight victories including impressive wins over BCC, Churchill, and Whitman in their last three games.
Throughout all of high school hockey this upcoming weekend is one very big unknown. Due to the holiday weekend, many external travel teams play in tournaments throughout the United States. Every high school program will have multiple varsity student athletes missing game action. The depth of each program will be tested as many teams will be promoting junior varsity student athletes to take part this weekend’s game competitions. Even though Upper Montgomery will be missing four critically important regular varsity participants, the Lightning will be able to field a full roster for the game against Quince Orchard. Who will Quince Orchard be missing??? Quince Orchard’s full roster of skaters consists of only twelve student athletes, and the team has one goaltender.
The outcome of the game may depend primarily on who is on the ice on Friday night. Even without full rosters, an Upper Montgomery win will seal home ice advantage in the first round of the Montgomery Hockey Conference playoffs. Expect the top end talent for both teams to receive an overabundance of ice time, more so than in previous games this season. Conditioning will definitely be a factor towards that latter portion of the game. That should provide Upper Montgomery’s co-leading scorer Chris Hassett (9GP, 8G, 13A) plenty of opportunity to play with several different forward combinations. The return of both Ryan Jacobson and Olivia Robbins to the lineup will help immensely as both student athletes play a strong two way game. Philip Shkeda and Brandon Bernard will be counted on to produce as they will likely see increased roles in the game. The contest will also provide an opportunity for Upper Montgomery’s depth forwards to impress the coaching staff and push for more playing time when the team is at full strength later this season. Defensively, the team will have most of its core defenders available for the game against Quince Orchard.
In goal, Landon Bernard will be looking to continue his string of strong performances. He has been hot the past couple of weeks giving up only six goals over his last four games, all victories. If available, Quince Orchard will start Jeremy Eager in net. Eager has played very well in a lot of games this season, but has had two uncharacteristic starts where he has given up six goals in both of those two games. His season stats are excellent, a 2.73 goals against average and an .889 save percentage. Bernard’s goals against average has decreased by over three goals per game since late October and is now an impressive 3.40. His save percentage continues to increase and is now up to a robust .860.
Quince Orchard has arguably the best single ice hockey student athlete in the county in Josh Weitzman. Weitzman leads all skaters in the county in points per game with 3.88 (8GP, 19G, 12A). He is second in goals in the county, and also third in total points in all of Maryland high school hockey. His running mate, Dylan Eyester (8GP, 14G, 16A) is right behind, fourth in total points in the state. Daniel Abarjel is the Cougars third leading scorer (8GP, 10G, 6A). This trio has produced in every game this season and it will be quite the challenge for Upper Montgomery to slow them down. When Upper Montgomery has played strong team defensive games, the Lightning have been successful in earning standings points in those six games. When the team has played substandard defense, the team has lost all four of those games.
Defensively, Quince Orchard has three very good stay at home defenders in Dylan Smith, Sydney Soler, and Braden Newell. All three play on AA or AAA external travel teams and all three student athletes are experienced juniors or seniors. Although they don’t put up a significant amount of points, their role is to protect Eager and let Weitzman and Eyester stir the pot offensively. Upper Montgomery will need to work very hard to penetrate the high scoring areas to get prime looks at the net.
The Lightning are piling up victories and are on a roll. A win on Friday night would be huge for the program. A victory over the Cougars would cement the team’s position as one of the top six teams in the Montgomery Hockey Conference. Hosting a first round playoff game would give the team the last line change and favorable line matchups. A full effort for all 45 minutes from every student athlete taking part in Friday’s game will be necessary to snag an important victory. Bring it home again this week Lightning and run the winning streak to five straight games and six of the last seven. Go Bolts!