The Upper Montgomery Lightning junior varsity kicks off the defense of their Montgomery Hockey Conference (MHC) Junior Varsity Championship on Wednesday night against the DC Stars. Game time is 7:30 pm at historic Fort Dupont Ice Arena in downtown Washington, DC.
With the departure of last season’s leading goal scorer, Joshua Miller, and the MHC junior varsity eligibility rule changes, which have categorized Bradley Cupples and Brandon Bernard as impact skaters and no longer junior varsity eligible, Upper Montgomery will rely heavily on a grouping of highly skilled returning veteran student athletes.
In goal, Landon Bernard will backstop the Lightning. He is coming off a six-game junior varsity winning streak to close out last season, including an impressive outing in the championship game (.950 save percentage). Bernard led the entire Maryland Scholastic Hockey League in junior varsity wins last season with eight.
On defense, Cole Howerton and Patrick Sell will once again pair together and see significant ice time. Howerton is a smooth skating offensively gifted defender and Sell is a sturdy stay at home defensively minded defender. Howerton will miss the junior varsity season opening game. Returning to the team after a one-year absence is Sean Levine who will look to re-establish himself in a top four role on defense. Brady Berkhammer and Stephen Shkeda who have junior varsity eligibility will provide a stabilizing force for the young defensive corps. New to the program, Jake Roth and Behr Schickler will play regular minutes on defense paired with experienced defensive partners as they get acclimated to the speed and intensity of junior varsity hockey.
Offensively, the team will look to replace last year’s goal totals by committee. The teams top two centers, Josh Nadler and Henry Honacki will be relied upon to increase their offensive production from a year ago while also providing leadership and playmaking ability. Nadler will miss the game on Wednesday night which will result in additional playing time for Honacki and Shkeda at center. Upper Montgomery’s top line wingers will be expected to produce more consistently than last season. Adam Levine, coming off goals in both the junior varsity semi-final and the junior varsity championship final last season, Lucas Eyman, and James Hyman will need to ramp up their offensive totals as upperclass leaders on the team. The remainder of the forwards, AJ Marks, TJ Gottesman, Branson Hughes, Jason Woodman, and Callum Hughes will need to move their feet and play sound positional hockey until they get acclimated to the speed and intensity of junior varsity game action.
The junior varsity has been practicing hard all pre-season and is looking forward to the season opener on Wednesday night.