The Upper Montgomery Lightning were the talk of the Montgomery Hockey Conference after the initial rounds of both the varsity and the junior varsity playoffs. With two huge upsets, the Lightning program is well positioned to make history during the 2025 – 2026 season.
The Upper Montgomery varsity team struggled through the regular season with a patch work lineup for almost every game. The team’s leading student athletes missed time due to external travel team conflicts, long-term injuries, and non-hockey related long-term illnesses. Entering the opening round of the varsity playoffs, the tenth ranked Lightning were seeded opposite seventh ranked and Division One opponent Whitman. Once again in the opening round playoff matchup Upper Montgomery would be shorthanded as team captain and 18U AAA senior center Owen Robbins would be out of town with his external travel team. His younger sister, 16U AA sophomore defender Lillian Robbins would also be out of town with her external travel team.
The matchup was thought to be one sided with most in the county certain that the Vikings would expose the youth of the Lightning and easily advanced to the quarterfinal round to face off with second seeded Walter Johnson. The Upper Montgomery coaching staff thought differently. They devised a stellar game plan that fooled the Lightning’s own spectators as well as the Whitman coaching staff which made no adjustments whatsoever throughout the game. Adhering to a defensive mindset, the students executed very, very well limiting Whitman. Although vastly outshot, Upper Montgomery was in the game throughout. With each shift, Upper Montgomery’s confidence grew and Whitman found themselves in a battle they did not anticipate.
At the end of the opening period of play, Lightning 16U AAA junior goaltender Ilan Shterenberg stood out making eighteen big saves, while keeping Whitman off the scoreboard. At the other end of the ice, Upper Montgomery placed zero shots on goal. The second period saw Whitman take the lead on a poor shorthanded clear by the Lightning. Then, Upper Montgomery scored on the powerplay to even the game at one mid-way through the second period. Ten seconds after the Lightning knotted the score, Whitman went back ahead. Shterenberg had zero chance on either Whitman goal as his own skaters failed him on both occasions. After two periods of play, Whitman held a 2-1 lead and were outshooting Upper Montgomery 35-7.
On Upper Montgomery’s opening goal, senior 18U AA defender Brady Berkhammer recorded his fiftieth career assist. This significant milestone automatically qualified Berkhammer for induction into the Maryland Student Hockey League Hall of Fame.
In the third period, Whitman’s most talented skater took a horrible penalty in the offensive zone slashing the stick out of Upper Montgomery ninth grade defender Lenny Roth’s hand far away from the goal. On the resulting powerplay, Berkhammer scored tying the game at two. Play continued as it had throughout the game with Whitman beginning to feel the pressure and taking uncharacteristic chances. The Upper Montgomery game plan baited the Vikings into forcing plays. With just over two minutes remaining in the game Berkhammer made an absolutely brilliant individual rush up ice scoring the game winning goal on a shot short side high into the top corner of the net.
Shterenberg and the defense made the 3-2 final score hold up as the Lightning negated the Vikings extra skater advantage at the conclusion of the game. For Shterenberg, who missed last year’s playoffs, it was his first career varsity playoff victory. He made a career high 53 saves on 55 shots on goal, .964 save percentage. The Lightning blocked an astounding 35 additional shots. At the other end of the ice, Upper Montgomery finished with ten total shots on goal. The team’s adherence to the defensive game plan confused Whitman’s student athletes and brought Upper Montgomery to within one victory of a covered place in the state playoffs. This will be Upper Montgomery’s third attempt in the seventeen years of the program to qualify for its first state playoff berth.
Prior to the Lightning’s varsity playoff victory, Upper Montgomery’s junior varsity sprung an even greater upset. In the quarterfinal round of the Montgomery Hockey Conference junior varsity playoffs, the program upset the second seeded Northwest / Quince Orchard / Wootton combined team. Using a physical hard hitting dump and chase style, Upper Montgomery forced the combined team into spending significant time in their own defensive zone. This negated their preferred up tempo free skating offensive style. Scoring first definitely helped as sophomore 16U Lower A defender Matt Rivera lit the lamp early in the game to announce that Upper Montgomery was going to be in the contest all game long.
The first period concluded with the Lightning trailing 2-1. However, in a game most predicted to be a blowout, the one goal deficit was easy to overcome. Just one shot was needed. Deep into the second period, Rivera potted his second goal of the game with under a minute to play, pulling Upper Montgomery even at two before the end of the middle frame. Three straight powerplays at the beginning of the third period gave the combined team some momentum. A goal that Lightning ninth grade goalie George Schickler would like back put the combined team ahead with ten minutes to play.
With under four minutes left in the game, Upper Montgomery went to its first powerplay of the evening after having already been shorthanded five times in the game. Then, forty seconds later, a second penalty gave the Lightning a five on three skater advantage. Rivera scored on the five on three powerplay with a blast from the point. Then, on the tail end of the five on four powerplay, Rivera scored on an individual rush to put the Lightning ahead 4-3 with two and a half minutes remaining in regulation. Rivera’s four goal performance set many junior varsity program records. Strong defense down the stretch with the combined team’s goalie pulled led to an empty net goal by Schickler’s older brother Jackson to close out the upset win.
In an interesting dynamic, Upper Montgomery will play sixth seed DC Stars as the Stars beat number three seed Silver Spring because the Silver Spring goalie was late to the game. This permitted the Stars to score three empty net goals at the beginning of the contest coupled with an empty net goal as the end of the game to pull out the unexpected victory. Upper Montgomery beat the DC Stars by a score of 7-2 in their regular season meeting and will be looking for a repeat performance in the upcoming semifinal matchup at the end of February.
#Advance to State Playoffs, #Advance to JV Championship, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!