In an odd scheduling quirk, the Upper Montgomery Lightning play the Richard Montgomery Rockets in back to back games. This Friday’s matchup is back at Cabin John Ice Rink, this time puck drop is earlier at 8:15 pm. It is a matchup of the two programs that were selected to finish as the two lowest ranked teams in the pre-season Montgomery Hockey Conference rankings. Richard Montgomery beat Upper Montgomery last Friday 9-4 and is better than the lowest ranked program. Upper Montgomery certainly is not the worst team in the county when all of the students are present and available to play. Coming off last week’s defeat, the Lightning will be looking for revenge and to turn around the season. After a wonderful opening night victory, the injury bug has impacted the students available to play with Upper Montgomery dropping four consecutive games.
The Lightning enter the matchup on a four game skid since their opening night trashing of the DC Stars. Conversely, the Rockets have now won four straight after their opening night loss. It is a tail of two teams headed in opposite directions. The past several Upper Montgomery collective defensive performances have been difficult to stomach. There have been far too many highly talented forwards skating around with puck possession seemingly doing as they please. Northwest / Quince Orchard senior star center Ethan Custodio 18U AA singlehandedly dismantled Upper Montgomery scoring six goals on the Jaguars way to an unchallenged 9-3 victory. Last week, Rockville / Magruder 16U AA forward Alexander Johnston put home four goals for the Rams. There have been too many breakaways allowed. There have been too many skaters standing in front of the Lightning net without contact. It seems as if every period there are forwards skating wide around the Lightning defense. Upper Montgomery just won’t win playing an up and down style of hockey where offense is the priority. The porous Upper Montgomery team defense has resulted in giving up 32 goals in the past four games, an average of 8 goals per game. The 32 goals allowed is the most given up in the county and it is no surprise that the Lightning find themselves at the bottom of the conference rankings.
Each week, the Lightning have had to cobble together the team’s lineup as upper level students miss playing in the high school game while they are out-of-town with their external travel teams. Now, with three skaters also injured, the team is limited in the number of students available to play. Upper Montgomery only has twenty skaters total in the program. Thus, when students are out of town, options are limited. When the Lightning are playing with less than a full roster, the team’s depth is severely tested as younger students are asked to step into roles that they are unaccustomed to playing. While harmful in the short term, it will yield results in years to come. Another of those weekends is upcoming as the Lightning will be missing the entire top offensive line once again this week.
Upper Montgomery’s primary varsity goaltender junior 16U AAA Ilan Shterenberg will return after missing the past four weeks. His presence in net should help lower the number of goals given up by the Lightning. Shterenberg opened the season pitching a 25 save shutout against the DC Stars for the first shutout of his varsity career. With Shterenberg having been absent, Upper Montgomery’s three other goalies have all seen action in varsity games.
Last week, in a surprise move, the Rockets started backup netminder Liam Parkinson in goal versus Upper Montgomery. He gave up four goals on fifteen Upper Montgomery shots. Junior 16U Upper A Michael Andrade likely gets the start in goal this week. Andrade, a Walter Johnson student, is the Rockets starting goalie. He comes into the contest against Upper Montgomery with a 2-1 record, a 2.67 goals against average, and an .843 save percentage. He has good range and quick reflexes which allow him to cover a large portion of the goal. If Andrade is out of town with his external travel team, backup Liam Parkinson will again get the call in net.
The Lightning’s defensive pairings will likely not be decided until game time. The pairings may get modified as the game goes on depending upon the score and how the team is playing. What is known is that the Lightning’s leading scorer, and also the leading defensive scorer for all of Montgomery County, and the leading defensive scorer throughout the entire Maryland Student Hockey League, senior 18U AA Brady Berkhammer will once again lead the Lightning’s backline. He has been exceedingly good so far this season with (4GP, 3G, 10A). Berkhammer will play at least half the game, as much as his cardio conditioning will permit. After Berkhammer, the Lightning’s other defensive pair will have junior 16U Upper A Miles Wendland anchor the left side. Both Berkhammer and Wendland lit the lamp against the Rockets last week. Junior Max Curtusan has returned to a full time roll on defense for the games against the Rockets as the coaching staff looks to have a more physical presence in the front of the net and on the penalty kill. Upper Montgomery’s penalty kill has been atrocious this season. The opposition has scored five powerplay goals with the Lightning only successfully killing off two of the opponents powerplays. This poor performance is even with the powerplay time for the 2025 – 2026 season being reduced to a minute and a half from two minutes.
Richard Montgomery will deploy several experienced defenders in the game. Their top scoring defender is junior 16U AA William Nimijean (5GP, 5G, 4A). He moves the puck very well on outlet passes. Nimijean has played almost exclusively with former 16U Upper A Brody Evans. Evans has scored in all four games that he has played in this season. The Rockets second defensive pairing is no slouch either, very tall space eating senior Ryan Jones plays with ninth grade 14U AAA Elliot Gordon. The Rockets third defensive pairing has sophomore 16U Upper A Franklin Karton playing with senior Samir Wang. The defensive depth that the Rockets have will keep their defenders fresh throughout the game. If the game is close in the third period anticipate that Rockets coach Chris Hinsvark will shorten his bench to put out his top available skaters.
Offensively last Friday evening, the Lightning found a way to score goals, but after the game was well out of reach. The Lightning’s top line of senior 18U AAA center and team captain Owen Robbins (3GP, 2G, 7A), flanked by fellow senior and last season’s leading scorer Philip Shkeda (4GP, 6G, 4A), paired with ninth grade 16U AA Miles Gleason (3GP, 9G, 3A) have been DOMINANT. All three of these skaters will once again not play on Friday night. The Lightning’s younger students who are being given an opportunity to play more meaningful minutes will need to step up and make an impact. Which students will step up and provide offense without taking away from the team’s defensive game plan?
The Rockets have evenly distributed scoring this season. Senior 18U AA Connor Myers leads Richard Montgomery in scoring with five points (5GP, 4G, 6A). Junior Henry Yang is tied for the lead for the Rockets in assists with six. Ninth grade 14U AAA forward Eric Myers has scored four goals in five games. No other Richard Montgomery forward has more than two goals or four points on the season. But, don’t let that fool you. Senior Bennett Parisi is on an 18U AA team. The Rockets also have two 14U AAA skaters among them Alexander Nimijean. Hopefully, several of these students will be out-of-town with their external travel teams.
The only way Upper Montgomery will consistently win games is by being buttoned up on the defensive end of the ice. The third period of the Silver Spring game followed up by the extremely poor defensive outings against Northwest / Quince Orchard, Rockville / Magruder, and this same Richard Montgomery squad last week clearly demonstrates that if Upper Montgomery deviates from the defensive style of play that will make the team effective, then the game’s end result will continue to look pre-determined. It’s not always about the outcome of the game, but how the game is played. Generally speaking, when the game is played the correct way, the results tend to follow. If Upper Montgomery does the job in its own end of the ice, the team will get back on the winning track. It will be up to the students to put in the necessary defensive effort to get the job done.
#Back on Track, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!