The Upper Montgomery Lightning came into Tuesday evening’s contest against the perennial powerhouse Churchill Bulldogs feeling confident. Churchill had struggled this season sitting with a 6-6-1 overall record, having lost four conference games already this year. It has been a season well below the exceptional standard the Bulldogs have set over the past two decades. Upper Montgomery entered the contest having never beating Churchill in sixteen years of the program’s existence. For two periods, Upper Montgomery was optimistic that this would be the year that the long streak would end.
But, in the blink of an eye to start the final period, hope was quickly extinguished when the Bulldogs scored two quick goals to separate from the Lightning. Churchill then cruised home for a 7-2 victory based in large part on the individual play of Bulldogs senior defender Kobe Esko-Himmelfarb. Esko-Himmelfarb scored four goals and added an assist in leading Churchill past Upper Montgomery.
The start of the game resembled one of those carnival games where the contestant throws darts trying to pop a balloon. In the hockey sense, Churchill dominated time of possession in the Upper Montgomery defensive zone teeing off and thumping pucks at Lightning sophomore goalie Ilan Shterenberg. It was a deluge of shots that peppered Upper Montgomery’s young netminder. The one time Upper Montgomery departed the defensive zone with puck possession, that rush up ice turned into a lead for the Lightning.
Halfway through the opening period, Upper Montgomery iced the puck. From the defensive zone faceoff circle to Shterenberg’s right, the Lightning ran a designed faceoff play. Lightning senior center Henry Honacki won the faceoff back to Upper Montgomery junior defender Brady Berkhammer in the left corner. Berkhammer’s outlet pass to the left wing looking for Lightning senior Nathan Cassel found him in stride streaking out of the defensive zone. Cassel corralled the puck at the center red line and was in alone on a breakaway. From the low slot he fired past Churchill’s sophomore goalie MacAllister Glazer low to the right side of the net. Glazer looked confused by Cassel’s move as he did not react at all to Cassel’s shot. For Cassel it was his sixth goal of the season. The marker gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead on their first shot on goal of the game briefly stunning the Bulldogs.
Unfortunately, the Upper Montgomery lead lasted all of 45 seconds. Towards the end of the next shift, Cassel had the puck in his left defensive corner. He made a bad pass across the center of the ice in his defensive zone. The puck went right onto the stick of Esko-Himmelfarb in the high slot. Esko-Himmelfarb said thank you very much cashing in by blasting a wrist shot high over Shterenberg’s blocker for his sixth goal of the season. The unassisted goal evened the score at one with seven minutes remaining in the first period.
Two minutes later Esko-Himmelfarb was at it once again scoring his second goal of the period to put Churchill on top for the first time. He had the puck in the corner to Shterenberg’s right. Esko-Himmerlfarb made a diagonal pass back to the right point to Churchill defender Cyrus Sawyer. Sawyer sent the puck down to the right corner to Esko-Himmelfarb. He skated around the referee coming out of the right corner and stickhandled through several Lightning defenders to the bottom of the right faceoff circle where he snapped another wrist shot high. This time going short-side up over Shterenberg’s glove hand.
As the first period tricked towards conclusion, Churchill defender Michael Dong was assessed a tripping minor with fifteen seconds remaining in the opening period. From the faceoff in the right faceoff circle in the offensive zone Honacki won the faceoff to Berkhammer on the right wing boards. Berkhammer swung the puck over to Cassel at the center point along the blue line. Cassel returned the puck to Berkhammer at the right point. Berkhammer sent the puck down to Honakci at the bottom of the right faceoff circle. With time dwindling in the period, Honacki took the puck hard to the net. His backhand shot hit Glazer in the chest. The puck rebounded straight out into the slot with Glazer scrambling around in his net looking for the loose puck. Sneaking in from his left point position, Upper Montgomery sophomore defender Miles Wendland backhanded the puck into the wide open net for his first career varsity goal. Wendland just beat the buzzer to end the period. His powerplay goal sent the teams to intermission all tied at two. Churchill had massively outshot Upper Montgomery by a margin of eighteen to three. The Lightning should have been ahead but for the bad turnover deep in their defensive zone. Confidence was building that the Lightning could compete with the Bulldogs.
Upper Montgomery did a much better job in the second period of getting the puck out of their defensive zone. Pucks were continuously whacked back to neutral ice. Pucks were flipped in the air back to center ice. When Upper Montgomery exited the defensive zone with possession and reached the center ice red line, pucks were dumped deep into the Churchill defensive zone. The Bulldogs then had to skate up ice through all five Lightning skaters to try and find a good scoring opportunity. The first ten minutes of the second period went exactly how Upper Montgomery wanted to play against Churchill.
Then, with under five minutes remaining in the second period, a lucky bounce benefited the Bulldogs. Churchill entered the offensive zone off the rush. Several long range shots missed the net wide of the goal. The puck eventually came to Churchill defender Youssef Elkousy at the right point. Elkousy cycled the puck down low behind the net to Churchill forward Cash Levenberg. Levenberg was defended well by Upper Montgomery sophomore defender Avery Evans. The puck popped up in the air to the right of Shterenberg. Shterenberg swung his stick in an attempt to knock the puck to the corner. At the same time, Wendland reached over trying to bat the puck away from near the net. The puck bounced off both Lightning student athletes and landed right at the feet of Esko-Himmelfarb. With Shterenberg out of his crease, Esko-Himmelfarb had a wide empty net to push a short backhander across the goal line and give Churchill another one goal lead.
Upper Montgomery went on the powerplay two minutes later with an opportunity to tie up the game. The Lightning had difficulty setting up the puck inside the Bulldog defensive end of the ice and came up empty on their second powerplay of the evening. As the second period came to a close, Upper Montgomery trailed 3-2 and was being outshot by a margin of 29-7. That said, the Lightning were very much in the game trailing by just one goal. Two of the three Churchill strikes were either due to an Upper Montgomery unforced error or a fluky puck bounce.
By the end of the first minute of the third period the game had turned mightily. On the first shift of the period off of the center ice faceoff, Upper Montgomery won the draw. The puck was immediately stolen by Esko-Himmelfarb who took the puck directly into the Upper Montgomery defensive zone. He stickhandled through the traffic of the Upper Montgomery defenders sticks into the right corner while being hooked by Wendland. Esko-Himmelfarb worked his way to the top of the right circle and shot on net. Shterenberg made the stick save. Standing in front of the net, Churchill forward Giorgi Lazarashvili put the rebound high short side over Shterenberg’s glove for his third goal of the season increasing the Bulldogs’s lead to 4-2. Wendland’s delayed penalty was wiped out by the Churchill goal.
On the ensuing shift, a faceoff in the Churchill offensive zone from the left faceoff circle led to the next Bulldogs goal. Upper Montgomery won the faceoff to the left corner. A banked clear off the right wing boards was kept in at the left point by Churchill defender Tyler Long. His wrist shot through traffic went wide of the net to the near side. A perfect bounce off the back end boards sent the puck on an angle directly to Churchill forward Adam Klewans. Shterenberg made an unbelievable skate save coming across the net thwart Klewans’ shot, but standing in the crease to quickly punch in the rebound between Shterenberg’s legs was the Bulldogs leading junior varsity scorer, Elias Elhallou. At five to two, Upper Montgomery now had an incredibly high mountain to climb over the final fourteen minutes of the game.
On the very next shift, Lightning junior center Owen Robbins was whistled for a cross checking penalty. Playing with much more confidence and smelling blood in the water, the Bulldogs once again peppered Shterenberg with rubber. The young goalie shook off the two early third period goals turning aside shot after shot. The Lightning caught a bit of a break as during the powerplay, Churchill forward Liam Naughton was called for a cross checking penalty cutting short the Bulldogs powerplay. After forty seconds of four on four play, Upper Montgomery went on a short powerplay of their own which was unsuccessful. A minute later and just after stepping out of the penalty box Robbins was called for a hit to the head while throwing a body check.
The penalty erased Upper Montgomery’s powerplay opportunity. Even more costly, the head contact minor penalty comes with an automatic ten minute misconduct. Thus, Robbins was done for the evening and the Lightning’s second leading goal scorer was lost for the rest of the night. Churchill again applied offensive zone pressure with the extra skater but was unable to get another shot past Shterenberg.
Halfway through the third period, Churchill extended the score to 6-2. The Bulldogs exited their defensive zone with a passing play. Then, from the left faceoff circle in his defensive zone Naughton skated the puck out of the zone across the blue line. He breezed up ice on the right wing. As he made his way through the neutral zone he chipped the puck to the right wing corner in the Upper Montgomery defensive zone. Naughton raced in after the puck and made a backhand chip of the puck from the end wall into the slot. The puck went directly to Churchill forward Qin Lai, the Bulldogs leading forward scorer. Lai’s shot from four feet in front of the net went through Shterenberg seven hole to the stick side for his eighth goal of the season.
On the shift after Lai’s goal, Evans was called for tripping giving the Bulldogs their third powerplay of the period. This time, Churchill cashed in at the tail end of the extra skater advantage. There was a scrum along the right wing boards inside the Upper Montgomery defensive zone. The puck was pinned against the boards outside of the right faceoff circle. Upper Montgomery freed the puck and rimmed it around the boards behind the goal. At the left point Esko-Himmelfarb kept the puck inside the blue line. He circled into the center of the high slot. Upper Montgomery’s penalty killing forwards were way too wide allowing an opening down the middle of the ice wide enough for a mack truck to drive through. Coming downhill toward the goal, Esko-Himmelfarb had all day to snap a heavy wrist shot from between the faceoff circles high over Shterenberg’s glove hand. It was Esko-Himmelfarb’s fourth goal of the evening and his ninth goal of the season overtaking Lai for the Bulldogs team lead.
The final five minutes of the game played out uneventfully. The Lightning’s third period demons struck once again. After playing Churchill incredibly tough through two periods of action, the final score was not indicative of how close the game really was. The historically long Bulldogs unbeaten streak over the Lightning will continue for another season unless the teams meet again in the Montgomery Hockey Conference playoff tournament. The loss further solidifies Upper Montgomery’s slot in the seventh position in the county rankings and a tougher path in the upcoming post season playoffs. The challenging conclusion to the regular season continues with both highly ranked Whitman and Oakdale to come before the Lightning’s opening round playoff tilt. Even if the squad drops its remaining games, Upper Montgomery will finish with its best mark in conference play since the 2018 – 2019 season when the team only played the other teams in the lower division of the Montgomery Hockey Conference.
Game Notes:
- Upper Montgomery was badly outshot by Churchill 52-13 including 18-3 in the opening period.
- Lightning senior center Henry Honacki saw his five game goal scoring streak end. He did have two assists in the contest and now has a six game point streak (8G, 5A).
- With his four goal explosion, Churchill senior defender Kobe Esko-Himmelfarb nearly doubled his goal total for the season. He had five goals entering the game with Upper Montgomery.
- Lightning sophomore defender Miles Wendland scored his first career varsity goal in the first period.
- With two assists against Churchill, Lightning junior defender Brady Berkhammer broke his career high for assists in a season at fourteen and counting. He has eight points in his last three games and eleven points in his last five games.
- Upper Montgomery senior forward Nathan Cassel has scored in all three games he has played in since his return from a six week absence due to an upper body injury.
- Lightning sophomore goaltender Ilan Shterenberg made 45 saves in the game.
- The Lightning powerplay continues to click. The team was one for three against the Bulldogs and is now 10 for 22 on the season (40%). Last year, the team was incredibly inept with the extra skater going zero for the team’s first 43 powerplay opportunities.
- Upper Montgomery has ten days off over the holiday weekend before the last conference regular season game against Whitman. Game time is at 9:00 pm on Friday, January 24th at Rockville Ice Arena.
Three Stars of the Game:
First Star—Kobe Esko-Himmelfarb—Churchill Defense—4 Goals, 1 Assist
Second Star—Miles Wendland—Upper Montgomery Defense—1 Goal
Third Star—Tyler Long—Churchill Defense—1 Assist