Upper Moreland Hockey Team Begins its Title Defense

UPDATE: Upper Moreand won Game 1 of the championship seires, 5-2, over Archbishop Wood. UM can wrap up the series with a win tonight.

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Originally story:

Two years ago the Upper Moreland Club Hockey team didn’t win a single league game. It was a young group that was still learning a system and the players needed to get its skating legs under them.

Under the tutelage of head coach Jim Stampler, last year the team made tremendous strides and was able to win the Suburban High School Hockey League and earn the team its first ever trip to the Flyers Cup, which pits Pennsylvania league winners against each other in a statewide tournament.

This year the team continues to improve and rolled to a 12-2-2 record. The Upper Moreland Club team will begin its SHSHL tonight in the first game of a best-of-three series against Archbishop Wood at the Bucks County Ice Rink at 7:15 p.m. The second and third game (if necessary) will be played Monday March 4, and Tuesday, March 5.

Upper Moreland defeated Lansdale Catholic in the semi-final to earn a spot in the championship series.

“This has been a 3-year build to this point where we have a lot of guys who are third-year varsity players,” Stampler said. “We have a core of players that have been playing together since middle school and coming up. That has really helped us."

Upper Moreland is led by the stellar play of its goaltender Jared Burch.

“We probably have the best goaltender in the league,” Stampler said. “He’s a really good goalie. We kind of are built from the defense out.”

The team has also been invited to play in the Flyers Cup for the second straight year. Last year many of the players were wide-eyed playing under the bright lights in a such a big tournament like the Flyers Cup. This year, however, it’s something the players are striving for and want to take advantage of once they get there.

“It was great for a lot of the kids,” Stampler said. “We were one-and-done, but it came down to the last couple seconds of the game and lost in overtime. It was a great learning experience for the kids. A lot of the guys didn’t know what the Flyers Cup was. This year, this is what the kids were really shooting for. They wanted to get back in and get further this year.”

The winner of the Flyers Cup will then go on to play in the State Championships. Upper Moreland’s first Flyers Cup game will be on Thursday, March 7, against Garnett Valley at the Warwick Ice Rink (8:30 p.m.)

The Upper Moreland Hockey team is a club team that is made up of members of the Upper Moreland community.

Teams participating in the Suburban High School Hockey Leauge are Abington, Archbishop Wood, Central Bucks East, Central Bucks South, Council Rock North, Council Rock South, Lansdale Catholic, North Penn, Pennridge, Souderton and Wissahickon.

Team Roster

25 Jordin Holmes, D
19 Matthew Baumgardner, F
87 Nick Park, F
21 Matthew Iehle, F
95 Kyle Landis, F
7 Joshua Barber, D
10 Matthew Shilling, D
20 Matthew Mastrogiovanni, F
28 Colton Arizini, F
30 Jared Burch, G
39 Christine Goold, F
71 Jacob Harrison, F
77 John Lowry, F
88 Matthew Beck, D
89 Jake Park, D
91 Colin Burch, F
97 Nathan Bennett, F
11 Matthew Fritz, F
29 Darrien Olson, G
31 Patrick Beissel, G
69 Nicholas Johnson, F