Friday night, the Upper Montgomery Lightning will face off against the number one team in the Montgomery Hockey Conference, and the defending state champion Churchill Bulldogs. Game time is at 9:00 pm at Rockville Ice Arena and expect a raucous Churchill crowd to be present. The game will conclude an opening stretch of games that the program has referred to as the four game gauntlet, where the Lightning will have played against four of the top teams in the state to begin the season. After the Churchill game, the schedule becomes more reasonable until the end of season playoff tournament.
The team’s record has suffered as a result of the opening schedule. The Lightning are off to an 0-2-1 start, but the team’s progress this season has been evident. Upper Montgomery had a 4-3 lead against second ranked Walter Johnson with eight minutes left in the season opener. The Lightning tied third ranked BCC 2-2 in the team’s last game. These results have propelled the program up the weekly conference rankings due the tough competitive games against the conference’s top teams. The tie against BCC brought the team its first ever points earned against one of the top four programs in the county; Churchill, Wootton, BCC, or Walter Johnson. A late pulled goalie power play goal was necessary to save the BCC Barons from defeat this past Monday evening. Upper Montgomery is no longer going to sneak up on any team in the county.
The Churchill game will be an extremely difficult matchup for the young Lightning. For the third time this season, the team will be playing short important skaters. Churchill will dress an array of AAA level travel hockey student athletes and will be in an ornery mood having uncharacteristically lost to South River earlier in the week. Prior to the South River game, Churchill dumped arch rival Wootton 10-3 in a game that was not very competitive.
In net for the Bulldogs will be either AAA goalie, senior Avery Schiff, or AAA goalie 9th grader Mac Glazer. Both goalies have each played in one game this season. It will be a game time decision on who starts in net or if Churchill will play both netminders during the game. For Upper Montgomery, Landon Bernard will again be between the pipes as he has been all season. Bernard is coming off of a very strong outing versus BCC, a game which many viewed as his best career varsity performance. Bernard stopped 28 of 30 shots, .933 save percentage, and made many high quality saves to keep the Lightning in the lead. Expect Churchill to fire the puck at Bernard often throughout the game with shots coming in bunches.
On defense Datlon Esko-Himmelfarb will see significant action versus the Lightning. He will be guiding an inexperienced defensive corps and will likely play against Upper Montgomery’s top offensive skaters. For the Lightning, top line defender Andrew Botti will miss the game as he is out-of-town with his external travel team. The Lightning will rely on four core defenders to try and slow down the Bulldogs, senior team captain, George Benedick, senior Ethan Hockey, and 9th grade defenders Brady Berkhammer and Owen Robbins. Both young defenders have loads of potential but lack experience playing against this level of opponent with many skaters who are three years older.
On offense for the Bulldogs it is pick your poison. With junior top tier forward Joshua Potenti likely to miss the game, the Lightning only have to contend with three AAA level travel forwards; Samuel Strand, Brook Chapman, and Ryan Wees, and also highly talented AA forward Zack Silver. Strand, Wees, and Silver are all averaging over one goal per game early this season. The Lightning defense will be under constant pressure. The forwards will need to play back in a defensive shell to clog up the ice and make it more difficult for Churchill to find open spacing in which to make plays with their superior talent.
The Lightning will likely be without this season’s top scorer, Ryan Jacobson, who has four goals and an assist in three games. The Lightning will also be missing several other skaters and the illness that is moving through Montgomery County may further deplete the roster prior to game time. Expect Lightning forwards Chris Hassett and Hunter Cameron to log significant minutes and for Olivia Robbins, Nathan Cassel, Bradley Cupples, and Philip Shkeda to use their offensive exploits to help the Lightning try and keep the game close.
Once the game is over late Friday evening the Lightning will have a pretty good idea of how they stack up. Defeating the defending state champion Bulldogs will be a tall order. The coaching staff is more interested in how the Lightning competes, even if down early, and for how long the team can stay in the game against Churchill.