The plaque Nutley head wrestling coach Mike DiPiano received after being selected as the NJWCA Coach of the Year last weekend in Atlantic City may only have his name on it. But if you ask him, he doesn’t view it as an individual award, but rather one that is and should be shared by his entire staff.
“It’s a coaching staff of the year award. Nicky Ritacco, Sabino Coppola, Frankie DeMaio Jr., Neal Picillo, Aaron Dunn. I can’t do anything without these guys,” said DiPiano, who just completed his 11th season as the head coach at Nutley. “We are structured as a staff. We have a game plan every day. We have a game plan for our dual matches. We game plan for individual matches. It’s not one guy. I lean on them as every good coach should.
“I feel we got the best staff in New Jersey and there’s a lot of time, commitment, hours put into this. It’s not just two guys in a corner (during a match). That’s the easiest part of the coaching.”
While plenty of teams talk about being a family, Nutley’s wrestling teams truly are. Ritacco and Picillo were on staff when Mike’s older brother, Frank DiPiano, was the head coach. Soon after Mike DiPiano’s arrival from Demarest in 2015, Ritacco, DeMaio and Dunn followed as well as other young Nutley wrestling alums who came to work with the current kids as volunteers.
“They never left and they’re the perfect examples for the guys in our program,” Mike DiPiano said. “(We tell them), ‘look at what they’re doing. They were in your shoes. They were in this room. They had myself and Neal coaching them and look at what they’ve become.’ They’ve become teachers and firefighters and they stayed in Nutley. They bleed maroon and white and they are good role models for the rest of our kids to strive to be.”
On the mat this past season was one of the most successful ones for the Maroon Raiders in recent memory.
In dual meets, Nutley went a stellar 24-7, which included a 42-27 victory over Passaic Valley on Feb. 16 for its first state tournament win since 2017. Five days later, Nutley defeated Lyndhurst-North Arlington for DiPiano’s 400th win in a career that also included stints at St. Benedict’s and Demarest.
Individually, Nutley boys wrestling had six wrestlers win district titles, the most it had in one year since 2013, while sending nine wrestlers overall to the regions. Two from that group – AJ Maiden and Nolan Brewer qualified for the state championships in Atlantic City.
On the girls side, Nutley once again sent two wrestlers to Atlantic City in Izzy Timonera and Michele Gavilanes with Gavilanes becoming the program’s fourth state medal winner and highest finisher after taking third place at 145 pounds.
Several of those wrestlers, including Gavilanes, who won 44 matches this season, and 30+ match winners in Maiden, Brewer, Valen Delaney, Evan Blanchard and Aidan Rotbaum are set to return for next season.
“We’re bringing back a lot of wins. We have some younger kids that are ready to step in and make a jump,” DiPiano said. The goal is a sectional title, and the goal is to get more people on the podium next year. One person’s great, and we are extremely proud of Michele, but we want multiples. I think after the region that we had, the next step is getting multiple people, not two (boys) to Atlantic City. We want four, five, six people down there.”
DiPiano is also the head of District 10, which Nutley hosts every year and he has been one of the most instrumental figures in the growth of girls wrestling in Essex County.
Two weeks prior, DiPiano was selected as the District 10 Coach of the Year, then the Region 3 Coach of the Year the following week. Each of the eight regional coaches of the year were then under consideration for the State Coach of the Year honor, which is given out by the New Jersey Wrestling Coaches Association.
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)