Wilt Chamberlain\u2019s 100-point basketball game is a popular choice for greatest individual performance of all time, but Klaus Harthaus has entered the chat.<\/p>\n
The Vernon sophomore isn\u2019t a stranger to facing a deluge of pucks. After all, he entered Saturday\u2019s matchup against Mountain Lakes-Boonton seeing an average of 54.7 shots in the first 33 games of his career.<\/p>\n
He nearly doubled that and turned aside an astonishing 104 shots in a 4-0 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really just a matter of determination. It was a mental game, and I think that\u2019s the best way of putting it,\u201d Harthaus said. \u201cI was fighting myself to stay awake on some shots and try to stay focused. But ultimately I think I would have saved a lot less if it weren\u2019t for my defense.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear if 104 saves is a state record. <\/p>\n
According to NJ Advance Media\u2019s stat database, no other goalie in the past 16 years has hit 100 saves in a game.<\/p>\n
Harthaus\u2019 previous career high was 81 in a loss to Morris Catholic on Dec. 21, 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the greatest goalie performance in high school hockey that I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d said Vernon head coach Nicholas VanDerlofske.<\/p>\n
Harthaus averaged one save every 26 seconds during Saturday\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
Rank
\n Player
\n School
\n Saves
\n Date<\/p>\n
1
\n Klaus Harthaus
\n Vernon
\n 104
\n 1\/31\/26<\/p>\n
2
\n Nicolas DiNardo
\n Passaic Valley
\n 88
\n 2\/21\/19<\/p>\n
3
\n Mason Caruso
\n Steinert
\n 84
\n 12\/20\/24<\/p>\n
3
\n Mason Caruso
\n Steinert
\n 84
\n 1\/3\/25<\/p>\n
5
\n Brendan McGrane
\n Lawrence
\n 83
\n 1\/12\/26<\/p>\n
5
\n Mason Caruso
\n Nottingham
\n 83
\n 2\/9\/24<\/p>\n
7
\n Klaus Harthaus
\n Vernon
\n 81
\n 12\/21\/24<\/p>\n
8
\n Louis La Ratta
\n Bishop Eustace
\n 81
\n 11\/30\/21<\/p>\n
9
\n Connor Casey
\n Pennsauken
\n 79
\n 1\/26\/22<\/p>\n
10
\n Matt Schoer
\n Pope John
\n 79
\n 2\/26\/18<\/p>\n
11
\n Michael Slivak
\n Paul VI
\n 78
\n 12\/16\/13<\/p>\n
12
\n Sydney Fogu
\n Bayonne
\n 77
\n 2\/25\/22<\/p>\n
13
\n Matt Altomare
\n Gov. Livingston
\n 77
\n 1\/11\/14<\/p>\n
14
\n Troy Callahan
\n Nottingham
\n 76
\n 2\/17\/23<\/p>\n
14
\n Adam Katz
\n Morris Hills
\n 76
\n 12\/4\/13<\/p>\n
14
\n Nick Wallace
\n West Milford
\n 76
\n 2\/4\/18<\/p>\n
14
\n Danny Cobb
\n Lawrence
\n 76
\n 1\/19\/18<\/p>\n
Above stats are from what has been reported by coaches and school officials from 2010 to 2026.<\/p>\n
He kept Mountain Lakes-Boonton off the scoreboard for the first two periods, in which he stopped 70 shots. He allowed the first goal of the game on the 73rd shot he faced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was dead after the first period. Second period was a battle, and second period was really tough because that period was really long. There was a lot of long stoppages, which made that even harder,\u201d he said. \u201cSomething I\u2019ve learned from experience is that when you are in a fatigued state, you can\u2019t stop moving. You have to keep going or else the fatigue will really start to set in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the second period, he definitely was a little more red in the face than he normally would be,\u201d VanDerlofske said. \u201cHe was well over in the 60s in shots at that point, but he was motivated to keep going. He didn\u2019t even want to cut the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was in that middle frame that what he was on the verge of accomplishing started to sink in. Every once in a while he\u2019d peek at the scoreboard and the total number of shots kept piling up.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecond period, I\u2019m looking up, wow, this is on track for last season\u2019s (personal) record of 90 shots in a single game. I\u2019m like, wow, I might beat that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was viewing it as a personal record because I didn\u2019t think it could be anything beyond that. Then, when it kept going, it went beyond 90, and there\u2019s still two, three minutes left. It\u2019s a weird feeling and that was the first time I\u2019ve ever seen the shot counter go into the triple digits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harthaus had 33 saves in the first period, 37 in the second and 34 in the third. His team was outshot 108-4 overall in the game.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s up to 1,658 career saves in just 34 games but he\u2019ll never complain about the workload.<\/p>\n
He loves it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been on some less than desirable teams in the past for travel,\u201d he said. \u201cTeams who don\u2019t have the best record, where I\u2019m getting, you know, 30-, 40-shot games consistently, and that\u2019s in travel. That definitely contributes to the mindset that I\u2019ve developed, that every shot is a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wilt Chamberlain\u2019s 100-point basketball game is a popular choice for greatest individual performance of all time, but Klaus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,46222,31267],"class_list":{"0":"post-443972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-ice-hockey-spicon","10":"tag-spicon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116008830155257263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}