St. Joseph lines up for a goal line play against Elizabeth in its 2020 season opener.
When St. Joseph-Metuchen hits the practice field on August 9th in preparation for the 2021 season, Rich Hilliard will be the head coach yet again, but he’ll have two former head coaches as his top lieutenants.
Hilliard told Central Jersey Sports Radio this week that he’s hired Mark Ciccotelli as his offensive coordinator and Don Zsak as his new defensive coordinator.
The Falcons are coming off a tough 2020 season in the midst of the pandemic, where they scored just under 12 points a game and finished 3-5 in their first sub-.500 season since going 4-5 in 2015. From 2016-19 they had gone a combined 33-7.
With openings on his staff, Hilliard decided to go big.
Ciccotelli was a head coach at Scotch Plains-Fanwood before giving way to Austin Holman, and has also had stops at North Plainfield, St. John Vianney – which he turned into a perennial power. Prior to that, he won three state titles at Neptune (2011) and Freehold Boro (2008, 2010).
Zsak the head coach at North Brunswick for a couple of seasons before Mike Cipot took over, and before being Mark Zielinski’s assistant spent ten years at Morristown, where he helped head coach Chris Hull lead the Colonials to a state title in 2010.
Click below to hear St. Joseph head coach Rich Hilliard talk with CJSR’s Mike Pavlichko about his two new hires: