Cherry Hill East won 11 of its first 13 games, but the team realizes it needs to keep up a sense of urgency with the regular season entering its final weeks.
Cherry Hill East Ice Hockey has established itself as the team to beat this season in Tier II of the South Jersey High School Hockey League.
Coming off its 2017 championship season, Cherry Hill East has embraced the challenge of repeating with most of its team back from last season. Entering its Jan. 12 game against St. Joseph’s, Cherry Hill East had not lost a game since falling to Clearview, 2–1, on Oct. 13. The team entered the Jan. 12 game with an 11-game unbeaten streak.
Senior Jack Amon said the team’s recent success means expectations are sky high for the program.
“You come in with the mentality to always win and get as many wins as possible,” Amon said.
The foundation for much of Cherry Hill East’s success is laid early in the season. Head coach Scott Busler preaches the importance of mastering the fundamentals of the sport to his players.
“You finish all of your checks, hustle, skate,” senior David Cutler said of the team’s philosophy. “You have to play with the mentality that you can win every single puck and score every single time.”
“(Busler) wants us to win another championship and he also wants us to play the right way,” Cutler added.
Building team chemistry and mastering the team’s system can be challenging, as Cherry Hill East is only able to practice once a week. To counter this, the team started practicing in late August, well ahead of the team’s season opening game on Oct. 2.
“We start a lot earlier,” Amon said, “so we have a lot of chalk talks and a lot of film review.”
One of Cherry Hill East’s strengths is on offense. The team leads the SJHSHL in scoring, tallying 87 goals in its first 13 games. Cutler, Amon and senior Johnny Pearson are the team’s top three scorers. All three have tallied at least 20 points and rank in the top 10 in scoring in Tier II.
“If we play a faster team that’s equal to us in skill, we play a little more conservative and let them make their own mistakes,” Cutler said. “But if we play teams we know we’re typically better than, we go all out with a hard forecheck and try go get the puck as soon as possible.”
Defensively, Cherry Hill East has been able to limit the opposition’s scoring chances by keeping the puck out on the perimeter. The team is allowing just 16 shots on goal per game and also features the best penalty kill out of Tier II teams.
Though the team has been strong in the early part of the season, the players realize there’s room for improvement. Cherry Hill East received a wake up call last Monday when they tied Holy Lenape Valley, 4–4. The tie ended a 10-game winning streak for Cherry Hill East.
“We had the whole break off for Christmas, we didn’t have any games or practices,” Pearson said. “Coming back to play a game against one of the other good teams in our division, we kind of weren’t ready for it.”
Last Monday’s tie had a playoff-like atmosphere to it. Holy Lenape Valley led 4–2 in the third period before Cherry Hill East scored two late goals to force the tie. Entering the game, Holy Lenape Valley was only two points behind Cherry Hill East in the standings.
“It was a wake up call that we can’t take this lightly,” Amon said of last Monday’s game.
There are a couple areas the team believes it needs to improve in. One of them is the power play, where Cherry Hill East ranks just sixth out of the eight teams in Tier II.
“Our power play percentage is extremely low,” Amon said. “We’ve had trouble communicating and working in our current system.”
Another area the team wants to improve in is puck handling and breaking out of its own zone.
“We need to talk more and maybe spend a little bit of time before practice focusing on new breakouts or new power plays we could use to have success,” Pearson said.
With less than a month to go before playoffs begin, Cherry Hill East is determined to improve in those areas and be running on all cylinders so it can defend its 2017 title. The team realizes it won’t be able to coast to the championship.
“Teams are playing us harder and harder as it gets closer to playoffs,” Cutler said.
