After an impressive win over the Ramaz Rams, the Cobras played back to back nights last week with a similar result. On Wednesday, the Cobras hosted the MTA Lions and jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead. MTA made it a close game by scoring a quick goal off the faceoff to begin the second making it 2-1. Halfway through the second the floodgates opened after a quick tally by junior Max Orbach who stuffed a pass five-hole which led to a barrage of shots from the Cobras. MTA didn’t have an answer for Kushner’s top line, which saw four goals from senior Josh Lando and two from junior Jessel Koppel. Itai Merlin was solid between the pipes for the victory.

After defeating the MTA Lions at home the night before, the Kushner Cobras squad had a healthy dose of swagger heading into what most people expected to be a blowout for the TABC Storm. After all, TABC has historically dominated the Kushner team at the varsity level in years past. All of that changed when halfway through the first when Max Orbach continued his hot start, scoring his fifth goal of the season by stuffing the ball through Storm goalie Charles Gibber’s pads giving the Cobras a 1-0 lead. Soon after, his brother Ben Orbach followed with a shot off a rebound with his first of the season. Going down early took the wind out of TABC’s sails, but managed to score one before time expired in the first period.

The second period began with some physical play seeing Storm’s Zach Levy and Baruch Shmukler-Karpov aggressively attempting to score or box out the Kushner D, but to no avail. Kushner wasn’t finished scoring for the night, with Max Orbach, Jason Singer and Lando adding insurance goals. Kushner controlled play for most of the game, severely limiting TABC’s opportunities by blocking shots and playing structured hockey. TABC never recovered from the offensive outburst but managed to sneak another one past goaltender Nathan Orbach to make it a 5-2 game with two minutes left to play in the third period. When the game ended both teams shook hands and congratulated each other on the strong effort. The teams play again at TABC on December 8, which should be a can’t miss game.