Tonight’s broadcast

Summit-Page vs. Franklin - 8:25 PM pregame, 8:30 PM faceoff BROADCAST LINK

Senior Night ceremonies

Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill and Pope Prep-MLK-GCA are having their Senior Night ceremonies tonight.

Scenarios for tonight

Franklin will win the GNASH Cup if they DEFEAT Summit-Page, AND Pope Prep-MLK-GCA DEFEAT Montgomery Bell.

Ravenwood will claim the Predators Cup 8 seed with a LOSS to Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill, OR if Montgomery Bell DEFEAT Pope Prep-MLK-GCA in the prior game.

Independence-Ravenwood 2 will claim the Henry Hine Cup 8 seed if Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin DEFEAT Centennial.

Previewing tonight’s games

The game that MTSN is broadcasting is in BOLD.

The six Tier 1 teams who are competing for the GNASH Cup have two records: their second half record, and their GNASH Cup record. If a team has an asterisk (*) next to their GNASH Cup record, it means that they have been eliminated from GNASH Cup contention.

Pope Prep-MLK-GCA (3-2-0, 6-6-0*) vs. Montgomery Bell (0-1-3, 6-1-4) - 7:10 PM @ Centennial A
And now, here is a massive test of the Knights’ consistency. After - in the words of late, great Friend of MTSN Dennis Weaver (a local softball coach and radio personality from Manchester, Tennessee, not the acclaimed actor who won an Emmy for his role as Chester Goode in Gunsmoke in 1959) - beating the “cowboy hell” out of league leaders Franklin on Monday night, Pope now go up against the might of Hunter Wieck and Montgomery Bell. It’s been 51 days since the Big Red decided to give Wieck a night off and take a beating from Summit-Page, and since then, Franklin have failed to take advantage, and because of that, the Big Red are still in the thick of the GNASH Cup race, as they have been many times over what’s approaching a full decade. MBA won the first meeting between these two 3-1 on October 2. The Knights outshot the Big Red, but Wieck’s mastery in the crease, along with two of the Big Red’s frightening top line (Lee Guy and Matthew Moore) managing to get the puck past Anthony Pellegrino (Trace Graham scored the third goal, which was an empty-netter), allowed MBA to get the win. Both teams are on different paths coming in to this game: The Knights have won three of their last four; the Big Red are on a four-game winless streak. MBA have yet to win a game in the second half; if they win out, they will finish 3-1-3, matching their record from the second half of last season. To me, they are due to lose a game with Hunter Wieck in goal, because they have called upon him to bail them out a lot, especially recently. The question is, can the Knights be the team that would beat him? They’ll have to duplicate the way they played against Franklin on Monday.

And I think they will. I’m picking Pope to win tonight.

Summit-Page (4-1-0) vs. Franklin (2-2-1, 8-2-2) - 8:30 PM @ Centennial B
This is a big game for both teams. If Summit win, they will potentially put the Predators Cup 1 seed out of reach for everyone but Pope. If Franklin win, they could win the GNASH Cup, provided Pope beat MBA, too. It’s been two weeks since the Spartans beat Father Ryan, using a three-goal third period to pull away to a 5-2 win. Outside the loss to Pope on November 27, Summit have navigated Tier 1 life quite handily. However, they still have this test, plus a showdown with Ensworth next Monday before confirming their place in the Preds Cup bracket. And now we turn our attention to the Admirals. As we all know by now, they’re coming off of a 5-0 molly wopping from Pope on Monday. Was it rust from not having played a game in nearly 50 games, or are they going through a period of adversity? I’m not really sure it’s either. Pope jumped on them early, and they had absolutely no answers. That is an alarming result this late in the season. As I said in yesterday’s newsletter, Franklin cannot wait for the playoffs to come correct; it’s got to start tonight. The Franklin program entered GNASH in its second season, 2000-01. They have never won a GNASH Cup or a Predators Cup. This group has a chance to do something special, to make history for a program that’s over 20 years old. They’ve got to win tonight, because MBA have a game against Ravenwood next Monday that they should win by a big margin. They cannot squander this opportunity, especially because odds are they won’t be as good next season. Quick note: Summit’s Sean Scott is serving the first of a three-game suspension for receiving a match penalty for making an obscene gesture to an official in the Father Ryan game, meaning he’ll miss tonight’s game, the game against Ensworth on Monday, and the Spartans’ first round Preds Cup clash.

I’ll pick Franklin to win, and clinch the GNASH Cup, thanks to the predicted Pope win over MBA.

Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill (2-1-1, 4-5-2*) vs. Ravenwood (0-5-0, 3-9-0*) - 8:40 PM @ Centennial A
My, how things have veered off since these two met on November 8, in a game where the result determined whether one of these two teams - or Brentwood - would be taking the midseason drop to Tier 2. The Raptors won 4-3, and Brentwood took the drop thanks to having a worse goal differential than MJ. Since then, Ravenwood sacked their entire coaching staff for a staff who would adhere to the board’s wishes, and emphasize developing their younger players, essentially marking this season down as a loss, while Mt. Juliet have markedly improved on a difficult first half. Both teams are coming off of a long layoff, MJ last having played on December 4, when they beat Father Ryan 3-2, completing a regular season sweep of the Irish (they won both games by the same final score, by the way), while the Raptors lost to Summit 4-0 on December 6. In addition to beating the Irish, the Bears have also beaten Ensworth, and tied MBA in a game they should’ve won. I don’t have much more to say about this one.

I’m picking Mt. Juliet to win and hand Ravenwood the Preds Cup 8 seed, if an MBA win over Pope hasn’t given it to them already.

Centennial (3-2-0) vs. Hendersonville-Beech (1-2-1) - 8:40 PM @ Antioch-North
Yet another team return to the ice after a long break, this one being Hendersonville, who last played on December 6, when they managed to salvage a 3-3 tie with Brentwood, scoring the game’s final goal with six seconds left. The Commandos are on a three-game winless run, after being on a seven-game unbeaten streak (which included four wins in a row) earlier in the season. So far in this second half, they’ve beaten Station Camp, been shutout by Rutherford, and suffered a heartbreaking late loss to the Outlaws, then the Brentwood tie. Meanwhile, after opening the second half on a 3-0 run, Centennial have dropped their last two to…Rutherford and Brentwood. It’s looking more-and-more like the Cougars won’t be the Hine Cup 1 seed, simply because they aren’t as good as the Rampage or Bruins. These two skated to a 4-4 tie on October 16, one of the many wins that got away from Centennial in that first half of the regular season, as the Commandos scored the tying goal with 28 seconds left (Hendersonville love their last-minute equalizers, and Centennial couldn’t stop giving them up during that first half). As said above, a Hendersonville win hands Indy the Hine Cup 8 seed. If that doesn’t happen tonight, then the Commandos could hand it to the Eagles on Monday, when they play each other.

Which is what will happen, because Centennial will win tonight.

Standings

Monday’s final scores

The game that was broadcast by MTSN is in BOLD.

Father Ryan 3, Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb 2
Pope Prep-MLK-GCA 5, Franklin 0 PODCAST LINK

Podcasts

All MTSN game podcasts will be uploaded exclusively to YouTube this season. To subscribe to our YouTube channel, scroll down to the footer of this newsletter, and click on the play button to be taken to our channel.

Miscellaneous links

Follow @MTSNGNASHScores on Twitter (we refuse to call it X) to get the scores for every GNASH game.

Sign up HERE to get GNASH games scores sent to your phone or email.

The next newsletter comes out tomorrow, January 25.