Cougars to face Rumson in title game
By: Justin Feil
Every once in a while, Yury Tarnavskyj just has to remind the Montgomery High ice hockey team how good it can be when everyone plays together.
The Cougars don’t need their head coach to understand how well they played in a 2-1 win over South Brunswick in the New Jersey Interscholastic Hockey League Southern Division semifinals on Wednesday.
The win avenged two regular-season losses to South Brunswick and puts the Cougars into the NJIHL Southern Division championship 6 p.m. tonight against Rumson, a 2-1 winner over Middletown North, at Pro Skate in South Brunswick.
"We’re very excited," said Tarnavskyj, whose team is 13-9-1. "It was one of our goals at the beginning of the season to win the league championship. This was our second playoff game in Montgomery history. We’re very pleased to be here, playing in the championship."
And win or lose, the Cougars have a quick turnaround before opening the state tournament. MHS is seeded 36th, and squares off Monday with No. 29 Nutley at 2:15 p.m. at Montclair State College. The winner faces No. 4 Morris Knolls.
"We’re playing right through," Tarnavskyj said. "If we had lost today, we would have played our first state tournament game (today). But this is like the playoffs. Whatever happens, we’re good to go. We just continue. We’re not going to let it affect us. We’d rather win obviously, but we don’t want to get there until we get there.
"It was a great team effort. The kids really came together as a team and put together three solid periods of hockey."
It’s times like those that MHS looks like a really good team. The Cougars got two first-period goals, one each from Andrew Wert and Jon Jacey, and Kevin Moore and the MHS defense did the rest in allowing just one second-period South Brunswick goal.
"We had to hold them back," Tarnavskyj said of the scoreless third period. "They played a great game. They were coming at us. They just didn’t score. Moore played an outstanding game and our defense was solid. They did their job. They hit. They went in the corners hard. They cleared the net and they got rebounds. And the forwards came back and helped, so I would say we played a strong team defensive game. In our zone, we defended very well. We didn’t give them many quality shots. And when they had chances, Moore came up big."
Moore’s strong play midway through the season allowed the Cougars to move Mickey Hover from net onto a line with Wert and Ben Salasko.
"We were watching him play, and he’s a bit cocky, he’s confident," Tarnavskyj said. "He did very well in practices and he really is competitive. He hates being scored on. We tried him a couple games and he came through. In his first game, he had a shutout. Then he had one game where he gave up four goals against Toms River and he bounced back and had a heck of a game against Old Bridge.
"We were trying to maximize what we had. We knew that Mickey could play out. He has good hands and he can play out, and it gives us three lines. Hover, Andrew and Ben has been good for us. It’s given Andrew more room to play. He kept some good pressure on. All in all, it was a win-win situation."
Lately, that’s also been the case with MHS. The Cougars’ win Wednesday was their fourth in their last six. They also tied Hopewell Valley, 2-2, Monday. On the heels of that victory, MHS started strong against South Brunswick, and unlike their 4-3 NJIHL Southern Division quarterfinal win over Monsignor Donovan, there was no letdown after they scored twice in the first period.
"You never know what’s going to happen," Tarnavskyj said. "We played fairly well against Hopewell. That gave us some confidence. We had a really good third period against Monsignor Donovan and we keep reminding ourselves how we played against Old Bridge (in a 3-1 win). We have to remind them that we can be pretty good at times. I challenged the guys to believe in themselves."
The result was a team effort that had Tarnavskyj beaming and the Cougars in the title game, not bad for their first-ever playoff appearance. And following tonight’s championship, MHS shifts attention to the same sort of atmosphere in making its first state tournament appearance since 1999.
With the same formula of strong starts, solid defense and team effort, MHS hopes to enjoy just as much success in the state tournament. And on the heels of its NJIHL Southern Division run, no reminders are necessary.

