The Upper Montgomery Lightning will celebrate its seven seniors on Friday night when the team faces off against Northwest / Quince Orchard. The Lightning will be looking to continue their best start to a season in years when they play the last place Jaguars. Game time is at 8:10 pm at Rockville Ice Arena with the senior night celebration prior to puck drop. The Lightning will be looking to accomplish several objectives in the game; advance the team’s record to 6-3-1 overall (and 6-2-1 in conference play), play a complete team game, and atone for Upper Montgomery’s ho hum performance against Northwest / Quince Orchard on Halloween evening where the Lightning did not play well at all and still walked away with a 7-3 victory.
For only the second time all season Upper Montgomery will dress its full lineup. Lightning senior forward Nathan Cassel will return from an upper body injury to face Northwest / Quince Orchard. His return will allow the Lightning coaching staff to slot the forward lines appropriately and his individual skill should help jump start the Lightning’s offense. The Jaguars upset Richard Montgomery early in the season but have gone winless since. Northwest / Quince Orchard enters the game with a 1-8 record having scored 22 goals and having allowed 76 goals against. Some prognostications had Northwest / Quince Orchard going winless this season while not being competitive in any game. Kudos to the Northwest / Quince Orchard student athletes for snagging a victory.
Upper Montgomery’s goaltender, sophomore 16U AA Ilan Shterenberg has been really good over his last two outings allowing only two goals in each game and stopping 72 of 76 shots (.947 save percentage). His play in net has helped Upper Montgomery win each of their last two games. On the season, Shterenberg sports a respectable 4.05 goals against average and a strong .892 save percentage. Shterenberg will be looking for his sixth victory of the campaign. He will again be backed up by ninth grade 14U Lower A netminder Porter Stutsrim-Lyons. Stutsrim-Lyons has started off his high school career strongly playing for Upper Montgomery’s junior varsity. Stutsrim-Lyons is 4-2-2 on the season with a 1.98 goals against average and a .927 save percentage. He has seen limited varsity action this year and could enter the game if the Lightning open up a large lead.
In net for Northwest / Quince Orchard will be ninth grade netminder Sean Wyatt. In securing the Jaguars victory over Richard Montgomery, Wyatt made 47 saves while giving up only four goals for a .922 save percentage. For the season Wyatt has a 5.63 goals against average and a .877 save percentage. Upper Montgomery will have a huge advantage in net with Shterenberg. Northwest / Quince Orchard’s defense has been overwhelmed all season causing their goalies’ statistics to suffer tremendously.
On defense, the Lightning have all of their defense available for the game. The Lightning’s most experienced defender, junior 16U AA Brady Berkhammer (9GP, 2G, 8A) will pair with sophomore 16U AA Avery Evans. Berkhammer had his first career two goal game against the Jaguars on Halloween as part of a four point game. Ninth grade defender 14U AA Lillian Robbins (5GP, 4A) will pair with sophomore 16U Lower A Miles Wendland (8GP, 3A). Seniors Cole Howerton and Patrick Sell will play together on senior night. With the loss of so many experienced skaters off last season’s roster, almost every defender in the program has seen playing time on the varsity this season.
Northwest / Quince Orchard has two reasonably competent defenders in senior 18U Upper A Drew Blurton and junior 18U AA Roman Martin (9GP, 4G, 5A). After those two skaters, there is a massive drop off in talent to the rest of the Northwest / Quince Orchard defenders. Anticipate that Northwest / Quince Orchard’s two better defenders will play with each other on the powerplay and at any crucial moments in the game. But, they will likely be split up and play with other defenders for most of the game in an attempt to keep at least one of them on the ice at all times. Look for Upper Montgomery to take advantage of the Jaguars inexperienced defenders and overload to that side of the ice on offensive zone entries.
Offensively, Upper Montgomery will look to consistently roll three lines during the game. With senior 18U AA Cassel returning to the lineup (2GP, 3G, 1A) he will play with 18U Upper A Henry Honacki at center (9GP, 9G, 2A) and left wing Philip Shkeda (7GP, 4G, 6A). Honacki leads the team in goals with nine having scored two goals in each of the last two games. Honacki has scored four powerplay goals and he has scored the game winning goal in each of Upper Montgomery’s last two wins. His game winning overtime goal with eleven seconds remaining in the extra period helped the Lightning overcome the DC Stars. He is also on a three game goal scoring streak. Meanwhile, in the earlier meeting against the Jaguars Shkeda had four points with a goal and three assists. The second line will be centered by junior captain 16U AAA Owen Robbins (7GP, 7G, 4A). Robbins has produced two hat-tricks so far this season. He will play with sophomore 16U Lower A Aiden Zheng (9GP, 2G, 5A) and senior Josh Nadler. The third line will see sophomore Jake Hudson (7GP, 6A) and ninth grade 14U Lower A Siddy Bhasin (6GP, 1G, 3A) center seniors AJ Marks and TJ Gottesman.
Northwest / Quince Orchard has only one offensive scorer of note, and he is a good one, junior 16U AA center Ethan Custudio (8GP, 13G, 7A). He scored once and assisted on the other two Jaguars goals in the earlier matchup against the Lightning. The key to limiting Northwest / Quince Orchard is to stop or contain Custudio. If Upper Montgomery handles Custudio, it will be a long, long night for the Jaguars and the Upper Montgomery rout will be on.
The 2024 – 2025 season has started out well for Upper Montgomery. Once thought of as a season of growth and development for the green and gold’s younger student athletes, this year is quickly turning into an opportunity to compete deep into the Montgomery Hockey Conference playoffs. If the Lightning can smoke Northwest / Quince Orchard, the team will be assured of a winning record in conference action. After the Jaguars game, the schedule toughens significantly with a rematch against Rockville / Magruder, and then games against division one foes third ranked Churchill and second ranked Whitman. Let’s hope the seniors’ send off is one to remember and that Upper Montgomery rings in calendar year 2025 in style.
#Senior Night, #Three Game Winning Streak, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!