By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The Montgomery High ice hockey team showed plenty of resiliency after suffering its toughest loss of the season.
After opening the year with two straight wins, the Cougars fell to Watchung Hills and Ridge, the latter in a disheartening 10-2 defeat. But rather than let the losses send them into a tailspin, the Cougars have bounced back to get themselves headed in the right direction.
On Monday, a goal by Matt Farley with just 21 seconds left salvaged a 2-2 tie against Bernards. Two days later, the Cougars put together a strong defensive effort in a 3-0 win over Livingston to improve to 3-2-1 on the season.
“The first two games we were off to a good start and then we had a tough loss against Watchung Hills,” senior defender Tyler Gallagher said after the tie against Bernards. “The Ridge game didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. I feel like with the play today, even though it didn’t show on the scoreboard, I feel like we turned it around and we’re starting to get back to where we started the year.”
Montgomery opened the season with wins over Bernards and Hillsborough before suffering the two losses. Against Bernards, Mike Hrudowsky scored the first goal and then assisted on Farley’s goal that tied the game. Against Livingston, Jack Wagner scored twice and Hrudowsky added a goal to back the shutout goaltending of Dylan Gerdes.
“At the beginning of the year we were on a high and then we lost a couple games and were not really putting it all together,” Farley said after the game with Bernards. “But now we have some things to build on. We definitely wanted to come back. We didn’t want to lose (the Bernards) game, especially after we felt like we played pretty well. We were just trying to get pucks to the net and get rebounds and at the end I was lucky enough to get a rebound and put it back.”
The Cougars seemed to outplay Bernards most of the game but couldn’t convert goals, falling behind, 2-1, before Farley’s late goal.
“The second and third periods I felt like the puck was more in their end,” Gallagher said. “We just kept hammering away and throwing shots on net. They had a good goalie. Mike Hrudowsky is a good player and he scored and that last one, Farley is a good presence in front of the net and he stuck it in.”
The Cougars are finding their way with players in new roles and are hoping the finished product at the end of the season can compete for tournament titles.
“Defensively, we have Rob Ducay, who is a captain and Vince Rodrigo who is returning from last year and we have a freshman, Andrew Galvin, who is a good player, too,” Gallagher said. “We want to make a nice run it states. That is the ultimate goal. That and also win counties. We have not won counties in a long time and we feel like we have a chance to win it this year.”
Montgomery has some younger players stepping into bigger roles this season, which means a big learning curve as they go along.
“It’s a new season and we have some different guys who need to get used to playing at this level,” Farley said.” We have a lot of freshmen who are promising and I want to see them get better and hopefully have a bigger spot on the varsity.
“We have a lot of good freshmen and sophomores and hopefully sooner rather than later those guys will develop and help us.”
The last two games seem to indicate that has been happening. And for the Cougars, that hopefully leads to continued better results down the road.
