The Upper Montgomery Lightning junior varsity will face their toughest test of the season this coming Friday afternoon when the team faces off against the Churchill Bulldogs. Puck drop is at 4:05 pm inside Rockville Ice Arena. The Bulldogs enter the game with a 3-0-1 record. They are averaging the most goals per game of any junior varsity team in the county at 5.5 goals per game. The Lightning will really have to grind on the defensive end of the ice to throttle the Bulldogs offensive attack.
Upper Montgomery enters the game coming off of its best performance of the season in last week’s 7-2 offensive explosion past the DC Stars. Against the game but overmatched Stars, Upper Montgomery had a deluge of offensive chances and could have scored twice as many goals as the seven the team converted. This week, Upper Montgomery will need to get back to its physical defensive style of hockey to take the Bulldogs out of their preferred style of play. The anticipated return of junior defender Max Curtusan to the lineup should help in that regard as the tall physical defender is going to throw his body around.
In net for the Lightning is expected to be one of the team’s ninth grade junior varsity goalies, Stephen Rickman or George Schickler. The Lightning’s starting varsity goalie, Ilan Shterenberg, will be out of town this week with his external travel team. Upper Montgomery’s starting junior varsity netminder, Porter Stutsrim-Lyons, will be making his first career regular season varsity start (second overall) later in the evening. Depending upon the flow of the game, the Lightning coaching staff may play both ninth grade goalies. Both Rickman and Schickler have seen multiple games of action this fall as Upper Montgomery is loaning both netminders to Walter Johnson High School as the Wildcats do not have a junior varsity eligible goalie on their roster. Churchill has three choices of which goalie to play at the junior varsity level. Senior Nick Nelson has fared well against Upper Montgomery in the past. He beat the Lightning in overtime last season making 27 saves in the regular season victory. This year, he has a 2-0 record, a 2.00 goals against average, and an .897 goals against average. Next up would be sophomore 16U Lower A Cooper Glazer. Glazer won his only start of the season. He has similar individual statistics as Nelson with a 2.00 goals against average and a .905 goals against average. The Bulldogs final option is ninth grade 16U Upper A Cody Jen. Jen played against the Bulldogs toughest opponent of the season and was saddled with the overtime loss to Silver Spring. He has a 1.96 goals against average and an off-putting .714 save percentage. The analytics predict that Upper Montgomery should score around two goals in the game.
On defense Friday night, the Lightning will play with their usual two defensive pairings. Curtusan who is playing much more confidently this season will pair with ninth grade defender Lenny Roth. Roth scored his first career high school goal last week against the DC Stars. It took Roth only three games to surpass his older brother Jake who went scoreless for the Lightning during his playing days. The other pair will be 16U Lower A defender Matt Rivera pairing up with Dylan Kim. Rivera has the green light to skate the puck up ice creating offensive rushes. He is becoming much more comfortable in this regard scoring a goal off the rush in each of the last two games. His speed and deft puck handling skills should provide Upper Montgomery with two to three high quality scoring chances per game. Rivera’s defensive partner is ninth grade defender Dylan Kim. Kim plays for the Tri-City Eagles external travel team. His play against the DC Stars was his best game to date. He will continue to improve as the season moves along. The games against Churchill will be a very good challenge for the two young ninth grade defenders to see where they stand.
For the Bulldogs, their defensive corps is led by junior Mingshuo Chang. Chang scored on a blast from the point last year in the teams’ playoff matchup. Chang will see major minutes in the game now that Churchill’s leading scorer 16U Upper A Gabriel Li has been elevated to varsity only status after scoring seven goal and having nine total points in the Bulldogs first three junior varsity games. Churchill’s other defenders are both ninth graders, 19U AA Olivia Hopkins and Dimitri Powell.
Notwithstanding last week’s game against the DC Stars, as the team’s first two games illustrated, offense is going to be a continuing struggle all season long for Upper Montgomery’s junior varsity. When Upper Montgomery plays the upper echelon teams in the county, the Lightning are likely to be outshot and will need to make every opportunity count. The team’s overall focus on defense first hockey is to lighten the need to keep pace offensively and score toe to toe with the top teams.
Last week against the DC Stars junior Mason Jagoz had his first career multi-goal game. He doubled his career goals total from two to four. His linemate for most of the evening, Tima Zamaray scored his first career high school goal. He also had a multiple goal game playing much, much better than he did against Rockville / Magruder. The offensive effort was much more apparent as every forward was hunting pucks and charging hard toward the net. Wyatt Ostrander continues to thrive as a defensive center. His penalty killing acumen has helped the Lightning thwart back to back five on three penalty kills in the last two games. Juggling up the forward lines last week seemed to help get some of the team’s forwards on track. The juggling was necessary when senior forward Jason Woodman dropped back to play defense in place of Curtusan. Woodman played very well meaning he may play additional games on defense should the need arise.
Even with Li removed from the Bulldogs roster, Churchill will still have a formidable offensive attack. Ninth grade forward 16U Upper A Kevin O’Connor has scored seven goals in four games. He too should be removed from junior varsity competition. After Wyatt Haas 14U Upper A and his two goals, the rest of the Churchill lineup is lean on scoring with only a couple of additional forwards with one goal apiece. As the home team, look for the Lightning to make sure that O’Connor and Haas are matched up against with Upper Montgomery’s best skaters and most physical student athletes.
As has been mentioned over and over, the 2025 – 2026 season will be one where the coaching staff is focused on individual student growth and development. With eight incoming junior varsity students, the program is looking for all eight of these students to contribute to the program over the next four seasons. The playing time received this season should help each student become better in the years to come when Upper Montgomery is likely to be better positioned to again challenge for the junior varsity championship. How quickly the team develops the necessary defensive habits and rough and tough identity will determine how soon the Lightning can threaten the top junior varsity teams in the county. This season, the team may simply be too young and inexperienced to compete on the defensive end of the ice. The hope is that by the end of the year no program wants to be matched up against the Lightning in the opening round of the junior varsity playoff tournament.
#UML, #Back to Back Victories, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!