The 1978 Nanuet baseball team went where no Golden

Knights baseball team had gone before – or has gone since.

That ’78 club has the distinction of being the only baseball

team in school history to win a Rockland County championship.

The county Public School Athletic League (PSAL)

title was shared with Ramapo and Clarkstown South.

In those days, before the realignment of teams into leagues

with similar-sized schools, all teams in the county played

each other, meaning that Nanuet often had to compete

against schools much larger than itself. Nanuet’s 20-game

regular season consisted of two games apiece against the

10 other Rockland high schools.

The leader of the baseball program was Coach Richard

Loughlin. Coach Loughlin personally invested his own

money and purchased Nanuet’s first-ever pitching

machine in 1976. Nanuet went on a championship run from that point forward, winning the Rockland County

championship in 1978 and Section 9 titles in 1976, 1977,

1979 and 1980.

The 1978 championship team had a combination of talent

and chemistry. Pitching and fielding wins championships

and this team had both. The team committed fewer than

one errorper game – 0.95 errorsper game, to be exact –which

is virtually unheard of at the high school level.Right-hander

Kurt Lundgren was the ace on the mound, complemented

by the free-spirited southpaw Jim Kavakis. The team

leader was John Panaro, the Rockland County Player of

the Year in 1978. All he did was bat .526 and register a .975

fielding percentage, committing just two errors all season

at shortstop (after making just one error the previous

year). Coach Loughlin had this team well prepared and

believing it could win, and the team responded as no other

Nanuet baseball team has.

The team set many Nanuet High School baseball records.

The following were school records when set in 1978:

FIRST ROCKLAND COUNTY

PSAL BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

Rockland County PSAL record: 15 wins, 5 losses

Overall record: 18 wins, 7 losses, .720 winning percentage

Team batting average, Rockland County: .328

Team batting average, overall: .313

Total team runs: 159

Hits per game: 8.5

Runs per game: 6.3

Errors per game: 0.95

Team fielding percentage: .958

Doubles: 30