The Upper Montgomery Lightning varsity squad returns to action on Friday evening, late night against the Rockville / Magruder Rams. Game time is 10:00 pm at Cabin John Ice Rink. The Lightning are coming off of a ghoulish performance on Halloween where Northwest / Quince Orchard star senior center Ethan Custodio singlehandedly dismantled Upper Montgomery scoring seven goals on the Jaguars way to an unchallenged 9-3 victory. It is the first win for Northwest / Quince Orchard over Upper Montgomery in five seasons. The Lightning played five excellent periods to begin the season outscoring the DC Stars and Silver Spring by a fourteen to two margin. In the last four periods, Upper Montgomery has played extremely porous team defense. Silver Spring and Northwest / Quince Orchard have chewed up the Lightning to a tune of fifteen goals scored to only four markers for the Lightning. Needless to say, the focus this week in practice was on the defensive side of the puck.
Each week, the Lightning will have to cobble together the team’s lineup as upper level students will miss playing in the high school games while they are out-of-town with their external travel teams. When the Lightning are playing with less than a full roster, the team’s depth is severely tested as younger students are asked to step into roles that they are unaccustomed to play. One of those weekends is upcoming as the Lightning will be missing several top end students once again this week.
Upper Montgomery’s primary varsity goaltender junior 16U AAA Ilan Shterenberg will miss the game as he did two weeks ago with his external travel team being out-of-town. Shterenberg opened the season pitching a 25 save shutout against the DC Stars for the first shutout of his varsity career. With Shterenberg absent, Upper Montgomery’s primary junior varsity goalie, sophomore 16U Lower A Porter Stutsrim-Lyons stepped in against Silver Spring and played well during the first two periods of action. He may also miss this week’s action leaving the Lightning coaching staff to dress the two ninth grade junior varsity goalies in the program, Stephen Rickman and George Schickler. Rickman received his initial taste of varsity competition last week against the Jaguars playing the second and third periods. His biggest save was stonewalling Custodio on a clear breakaway.
Rockville / Magruder is expected to start ninth grade 16U AA goalie Ethan Rabinovitch. Rabinovitch has started all three games for the Rams. He carries into the contest against Upper Montgomery a 1-1-1 record, a 4.00 goals against average, and a .900 save percentage. He has good range and quick reflexes which allows him to cover a large portion of the goal. One of the largest changes for the Rams this season is on defense where star seniors defenders Andrew Pfeufer and Aiden Ward no longer patrol the backline. Their departure has left Rabinovitch playing behind a less impressive defensive corps which has hurt his goals against average.
On defense, the Lightning will role with more than the three primary defenders that suited up against Northwest / Quince Orchard. Like has been discussed each week, it might get to the point where all forwards take shifts on defense to spread out the ice time. The Lightning’s leading defensive scorer, and also the leading defensive scorer for all of Montgomery County, and the leading defensive scorer throughout the entire Maryland Student Hockey League, senior 18U AA Brady Berkhammer will once again lead the Lightning’s backline. He has been exceedingly good so far this season with (3GP, 2G, 9A). Last season, he led the Lightning in assists with fifteen. He is right back at it again this season.
Berkhammer will need to play a very strong game against the Rams to make up for the uncertain goalie situation. Sophomore 16U Lower A Matt Rivera fared pretty well against the DC Stars playing almost exclusively with Berkhammer. Look for that pairing to be put back together for the game against the Rams. Lightning junior 16U Upper A Miles Wendland has taken on a larger role this season. The team’s alternate captain is a steady, smooth skating defender who is rarely caught out of position. Sophomore 16U AA defender Lillian Robbins returns to action for the fist time in two weeks. She will provide balance playing with Wendland. Robbins is also one of the Lightning’s top penalty killers so her return will help out a unit that has struggled since the season opener. Anticipate junior Max Curtusan receiving shifts on defense to allow some of the other students to catch their breath. He will also likely play forward for several shifts as well. The defensive will have to pay specific attention on Rockville / Magruder’s top high scoring forwards.
The Rams leading returning defender is senior 18U Upper A Max Yuen. Yuen is a wide bodied defender that the Lightning can take advantage of with team speed down the wings. Sophomore 16U Lower A Lukas Aagaard has a lot of varsity experience for playing in just his second year of high school hockey. He will likely play a significant amount paired with Rams senior defender 18U Upper A Lincoln Herrick. Sophomore 16U AA Evelyn May, and juniors David Schanzer and Carder Wilcox will see action spread throughout the game.
Offensively, the Lightning coaches figured the team would have a tough time scoring this season. Well, that assumption went out the window after Upper Montgomery led the county in scoring at 7.5 goals per game through the first two weeks of the season. If they play up to their standards, Upper Montgomery’s top line of senior 18U AAA center and team captain Owen Robbins (2GP, 1G, 5A), flanked by fellow senior and last year’s leading scorer Philip Shkeda (3GP, 5G, 2A), paired with ninth grade 16U AA Miles Gleason (3GP, 9G, 3A) have been DOMINANT. Along with Berkhammer, these four students have scored all but one of the Lightning’s goals so far this season. Both Gleason and Shkeda scored hat-tricks against the Stars. Gleason followed up his week one performance with five goals and an assist in week two. Shkeda was no slouch either chipping in with two goals and two assists versus the Blazers. The balance of the forward lines will need to do their job playing more defensive, recognizing when the Rams top skilled students are on the ice, and playing a tough physical style of hockey. The Lightning’s younger students who are being given an opportunity to play more will need to step up and make an impact like Mason Jagoz did last week when he scored his first career high school varsity goal against Northwest / Quince Orchard.
Unlike last week’s game where Northwest / Quince Orchard super talent senior 18U AA center Ethan Custodio single handled destroyed the game, Rockville / Magruder scores by committee. Sophomore 16U AA Alexander Johnston played last week for the first time this season. He scored a hat-trick against Silver Spring in his season debut. After playing in his only game, he leads the Rams in scoring with those three points. Fellow sophomore, 16U AAA Cameron Gifford has yet to suit up for the Rams this season. He has the ability to be a game wrecker. Lets hope his external travel team is out-of-town this weekend. He hurt Upper Montgomery in both games played last season. He had a four point game with a hat-trick and an assist in the first game. Gifford scored with one second left in regulation with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker to allow Rockville / Magruder to scrape away with a tie. In the rematch, he scored four goals to help propel the Rams third period comeback victory over the Lightning.
No other Rams forward has more than one goal or two points on the season. However, Rockville / Magruder possesses several student athletes who have had a fair amount of varsity experience led by senior 18U AA Toyin Okunseinde, junior 16U Upper A Ryan Hurley, senior 18U Upper A Ari Solomon, senior Adam Salomon, and junior 16U Upper A Rowen Pierson. Upper Montgomery is preparing for all of these forwards to play alongside the Rams two offensive talents.
While all seems good momentarily on the offensive side of the house, the only way that Upper Montgomery will consistently win games is by being buttoned up on the defensive end of the ice. The third period of the Silver Spring game followed up by the Northwest / Quince Orchard game clearly demonstrated that if Upper Montgomery deviates from the style of play that makes the team effective, then the game’s end result could look scary. The Lightning should be well versed in playing with a short roster. The experienced students need to lead by example willing the team to victory. Hopefully, when the clock strikes midnight on Friday, the squad’s record is back to even at 2-2.
#Redemption, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!