The Ridge High School ice hockey team has had the number of its Skyland Conference rival, Montgomery, for the past several seasons. It appears that trend might be coming to an end, however.
"Montgomery is a traditional rival with a lot of seniors, and I thought it was going to be like this," said Ridge head coach Tim Mullin after his team was unable to muster any offensive organization and skated in its own end for most of the game Friday. The Red Devils were shut out by a much more aggressive Cougars team, 3-0, at ProtecHockey Ponds in Somerset.
"They (Montgomery) were taking it to the body real hard so it was tough for us to get pucks in," said Ridge senior forward Zach Fischl. "They pretty much stepped up on us so we had to dump it a lot, and they won those races to the puck."
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Ridge looked out-of-sync from the first puck drop with Montgomery holding a 2-1 advantage in hits and takeaways.
"We couldn't get the puck working today," Fischl added. "We couldn't get it in their zone, and we didn't have the time to set anything up because they took our time and space away."
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Montgomery's Scott Hrudowsky put the puck past Ridge goaltender Alec Wells on a rebound, with the initial shot coming off the stick of John Fox at the 9:46 mark of the first period. The cougars added two more in the third period - a power play goal from Dan Kazaryn at 6:29 and empty netter from Kevin Wanke at 1:30.
Ridge was unable to capitalize on its own power play in three chances, and it was out shot by a staggering 40-14 margin. Junior goalkeeper Alec Wells made 37 saves in a valiant effort.
"He's great," Fischl said of Wells. "He just keeps us in the game even when some of our players aren't going their hardest because they're tired. He's just fighting his heart out and working as hard as he can all the time."
It will be a quick turn-around for the Red Devils coming off the loss as they will host a much improved Bridgewater-Raritan team at 8:30 p.m., Saturday at the Bridgewater Sports Arena with the risk of falling to 0-2 in the conference, and 1-4 overall.
"The games don't get any easier from here," Fischl added. "They just get harder, and all we can do is learn from this game."
"We have to get more scoring chances," Mullin said. "That's definitely something we need to work on."
RIDGE (1-3) 0 0 0 - 0
MONTGOMERY (2-0-1) 1 0 2 - 3
FIRST PERIOD: M -- Hrudowski (Fox) 9:46.
SECOND PERIOD: none
THIRD PERIOD: M -- Kazaryn (pp) 6:29; Wanke (en) 1:30.
GAME TOTALS: Shots -- Montgomery 40-14; Saves -- R: Wells (37)
