Kennedy goalkeeper scores with 30 shutouts

Cold Spring Harbor fired a scorching corner kick straight to the center of the 18-yard box –– and straight to the head of the squad’s best player, who was unmarked.

“Our hearts sank,” remembered Anthony DeMartinis, the Kennedy soccer team’s assistant coach.

It was the fall of 2013, round one of the Nassau County soccer playoffs. The Kennedy-Cold Spring Harbor game had gone into overtime –– and would be decided by a “golden goal,” meaning whichever team scored first would win.

Cold Spring Harbor’s header came fast. It looked like a certain goal.

Jake Silverman, Kennedy’s 6-foot-3 goalie from Merrick, who was then a junior, leapt to his right, fully extending his body to stop the point-blank shot, and “incredibly made the save,” DeMartinis said.

Cold Spring Harbor’s players stood in stunned disbelief.

Silverman, now 17 and a senior, had the presence of mind to scoop up the ball and quickly distribute it to Ben Rabinowitz, Kennedy’s captain and the 2014 valedictorian. Rabinowitz ran it up field and fired a killer shot off the fast break, scoring and sending Kennedy into the second round of the playoffs, where the Cougars faced Wantagh, ranked No. 1 in Nassau County and No. 5 in New York state.

Kennedy won again before the squad lost in the semifinal match, but Silverman said he would never forget that Cold Spring save.

DeMartinis said it was one of the “most exciting” plays that he has ever witnessed.

The save was one of many astounding displays of acrobatics that Silverman performed during his four years as the starting goalkeeper on Kennedy’s varsity squad. In all, Silverman had 30 shutouts during his high school career, which ended recently in the county playoffs.

“It’s pretty special what he did,” said Jason Elias, Kennedy’s head coach.

The Nassau County Soccer Coaches Association agreed and recently awarded Silverman a special honor in recognition of what Elias called Nassau’s unofficial save record. (The NCSCA did not scour the archives to see whether any player ever had more saves, but coaches agreed that 30 was the most number of saves that any of them had seen –– and was likely the most ever in Nassau.)