Anticipation had been building for this season. Under Coach Jerry Bonomolo, the Golden Knights boys’ basketball team

had advanced to the championship game of the Section 9 tournament in 1969 and to the semifinals in 1970, both times

bowing to Rondout Valley. Now the Knights were ready to take the next step, ready to win the second Sectional title in

school history after the Mickey Wittman-led 1962 club.

After losing in the sectional semifinals the previous year, “Boy, were we upset that we didn’t win the whole thing,”

remembers Bob Hinds, a star forward who made second-team All-County in ’71. “We should have won that game and we

let it get away. When the ’71 season came there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to win the whole thing. We

knew what kind of talent we had on this team from years prior and we were not going to let the Sections get away from us

again.”

The Nanuet gym in 1971 was a hotbed of excitement on game days. All home games had advance ticket sales – if you

hadn’t secured a ticket two days in advance, you were pretty much out of luck. Oh sure, the Knights had Darryl Brown,

the wiry 6-foot-7 center who was All-Everything that season. But they also had two big forwards, the 6-4 Hinds and 6-3

Bob Carpenter, who crashed the boards and supported Brown offensively. They also had point guard Kevin Krause and off

guard Andy Lover, both of whom improved during the course of the season, especially in the Sectional playoffs.

At the top of the pyramid was Bonomolo, the canny third-year coach who instituted a system that maximized the team’s

strengths while minimizing its weaknesses. Offensively, the Knights thrived with a limited number of set plays, often

preferring to feed Brown down low in position for a turnaround or drive to the hoop. Defensively, they usually employed a

1-2-2 zone, sometimes a 2-1-2. Rarely did they press.

“Coach Bonomolo recognized that in Darryl he had a star, but he came up with an offense and defense that fit the talent on

the rest of the team,” says Carpenter. “We fit into really specific roles. Our offense wasn’t fancy. We came down the court

each time, did the same things time and again, and dared people to stop us. Coach Bonomolo never asked us to fast break

or [on defense] full court press. It was not in our DNA.”

Bonomolo called the plays but Brown and Hinds would sometimes change the play after sizing up the defense. “I

remember the first game of the ’71 season when we won the tip-off, I was at the post, at the top of the foul line,” Hinds

recalls. “I told Darryl I was going to slap the ball. When I did that I wanted him just to cut across in front of the hoop. I

threw the ball backwards over my head at the basket. Darryl was there to catch and score all in one motion. I didn’t even

turn around, I just started to run [down] the court on defense. The place went nuts. That started our 1971 run.”

Leveraging their talent-specific system to greatest advantage, Nanuet rolled through the PSAL season with an 11-5 mark

– tops in school history to that point – and a share of third place in the league, also the best by a Golden Knights team.

Nanuet, remember, was one of the two smallest schools in the County, along with Pearl River. Schools like County champ

Clarkstown, North Rockland and Spring Valley dwarfed Nanuet in enrollment.

“I felt the Suffern game was the turning point of our season,” Bonomolo says. “We were losing by 13 points in the first

quarter, 31-18. The team picked up their defense and held Suffern to 32 points in the next three quarters.” Final score:

Nanuet 67, Suffern 63.

Men’s Basketball Team

1970 - 1971

In the Section 9 Division 2 (Class B) tournament, Nanuet faced three teams with a collective record of 55-5. First up was

New Paltz, whom the Knights dispatched 70-51 behind Brown’s 30 points and 29 rebounds, supported by Carpenter’s 12

points and Krause’s 11.

The semifinals versus Liberty proved a much sterner test. With Nanuet trailing 50-41 heading into the fourth quarter,

Bonomolo needed a stratagem to get his team back in the game – and quickly. He called for a 2-2-1 zone press to change

the tempo and gain quick possessions. It worked. Carpenter hit three straight shots at the start of the fourth quarter to light

a fire under the Knights. Krause sank 7 of 8 free throws to key the team’s 15-of-18 performance from the charity stripe

down the stretch. Although four players each had four fouls, none fouled out. Powered by Brown’s 31-point effort and 12

apiece from Hinds and Krause, Nanuet survived, 66-62.

Nanuet’s opponent in the championship game was Highland Falls, which had lost only two of its previous 39 games over

two years and was 19-1 on the season, averaging a robust 85 points per game. But the Knights were not intimidated. They

clamped down on defense, bolted to a 36-30 halftime lead and weathered the absence of Brown due to foul trouble for

much of the third period. When the Highland Falls defenders collapsed around Brown in the low post, he kicked the ball

out to open men and as a result Nanuet had one of its most balanced attacks of the season.

Brown collected 19 points and 20 rebounds, but equally important were the contributions of Hinds (17), Carpenter (12),

Krause (9) and subs Paul Borghard and Tony Reif as Nanuet prevailed, 67-60, for the Section 9 championship. The team

finished with a 16-5 overall mark – another school record – and was the highest scoring (67.5 points a game) and best

defensive team (59.3) in school annals as well. Brown earned first-team All-County honors and first-team New York

Daily News accolades, which included all Section 9 players, large and small. Hinds, a consistent double-digit scorer and

rebounder, made second-team All-County.

Brown closed out the season as the Rockland County career scoring leader with 1,188 points and was the first Nanuet

player to score 1,000 points. He also set a County record by scoring in double figures 41 straight games. He finished

second behind Clarkstown’s Bob Mathias in points (532 in 21 games) and scoring average (25.3), and shot better than 60

percent from the field for the entire season. Hinds finished 12th in the County in scoring with 307 points and averaged

14.6 points a game.

“School support and town support was unbelievable, says Hinds. “Besides students and parents, people would come that

just wanted to see us play. It was an awesome time.”

“It was a super group of kids to coach and an honor to coach them,” says Bonomolo, who was assisted by Rich Loughlin,

Bob West and Gerry Stopyra. Other members of the 1971 team included Mike Weinstein, Wolfgang Krull, Ed Bouton,

Tom Glover, Don McKernan, Tony Chirico, Emil Kopilovich, Mike Confield, Steve Miller and Mike Alicea.