St. Anthony’s vs. Chaminade Standout

Chaminade will be seeing Rappaport’s championship performance in its nightmares for the second straight year. Last year, he came in at halftime and gave the Friars a big spark. This year, he split time with fellow senior Nick Zenk (Air Force) throughout the year but got the nod for the full game Wednesday. The future Greyhound made 11 stops, an impressive number in its own right, but it was when he made those stops that really shined. He denied a trio of early John Balsamo offerings that would have potentially put the game out of reach for Chaminade.

Rappaport denied a high Finn Pizzo jumper with the Friars after Danny Rooney had just capped the a 5-0 St. Anthony’s run to go up 11-9. And in perhaps his best and timeliest save, Rappaport blocked a Hayden Sipress backhander with St. Anthony’s up 12-10. It felt like Rappaport made his biggest saves whenever Chaminade had an opportunity to put together a run to change the game’s complexion.

“It’s absolutely fantastic, especially being able to play with all of my friends in this stadium,” Rappaport said. “We’ll remember this for the rest of our lives and we’ll keep talking about this. When we tied it up and they called timeout, we played a great game after that. Once our offense stepped up big time, it was so much easier for our defense to play well. It’s definitely special.”

St. Anthony’s vs. Chaminade Standout

Statistically, Rappaport was good but didn’t blow anyone away with his seven saves. Rather, it’s the timeliness of his saves that deflated the Flyers for the second meeting in a row. Last May, he came on at halftime and reversed the Friars’ fortunes with some huge saves. This time, he accelerated the process with when he made his saves. He stymied a good Will Ferraro-Reich (Richmond) look after Cacciabaudo had given St. Anthony’s its first lead at 6-5. Rappaport made another save in tight and followed it up shortly after on a point-blank look from Michael Mayerhofer (Towson) to keep the game at 8-5. Navy-bound defenseman Pat Heron then put the finishing touches on a 7-0 Friars run that essentially cemented the game. The 6-3 Rappaport was very good once again on low shots and cleared up some of his clearing mistakes from the opener against Culver.

St. Anthony’s vs. Culver Standout

Rappaport was really the only reason why Culver didn’t build a huge lead early as the Friars struggled to keep a handle on the ball. The Loyola signee was excellent in the cage, making eight of his 12 saves in the first half. Even though he’s around 6-3, Rappaport was outstanding on low shots, showing great quickness and agility to get to tough shots from a stacked Culver offense. One save in particular was a showstopper, where Rappaport went post-to-post to take away a sure goal. He had a couple of clears that he’d like to have back. Despite that, it’s clear that Rappaport has built off of last year’s championship performance against Chaminade and he’s very comfortable being the unquestioned starting goalie for the Friars.