Sean Marinan led Xavier football to five state championships between 2002 and 2016 before leaving to coach at Southern Connecticut.
Now Marinan is back at Xavier but things are a little different. Last year, the Falcons went 3-7 and Marinan is rebuilding.
“We’re very much a work in progress,” he said. “I’m trying to temper people’s (expectations) a little bit, not to expect too much too fast. We lost some kids that transferred and we’ve had some injuries. We’re trying to restructure everything from the ground up.”
Marinan is one of the many new football coaches or coaches who have returned to the high school sidelines this season. Dario Highsmith Jr., a former star at Middletown High, is coaching at his alma mater. Brian Mazzone left the Stafford co-op to be an assistant at Enfield, where he lives and teaches, and one of his former players, Devin Gilbert, took over as head coach.
After Joe Aresimowicz left Berlin, former coach John Capodice returned. And Windsor’s Rob Fleeting stopped coaching to become an assistant principal and his son Quinn, one of the assistant coaches, took over.
Sean Marinan is back on the sidelines for Xavier High in Middletown. Marinan had coached the program to five state titles and cautions fans that his Falcons are rebuilding. (Courant file photo)
Marinan’s Xavier teams first won a title in 2005 and last won in 2014. But out of a roster of 58 players, he’s had 15 with preseason injuries and only two are returning this week. Xavier opens against Cheshire on Friday.
Xavier’s quarterback is senior Jaden Brown and Oli Obi is a senior wide receiver/linebacker.
Marinan spent the last seven years as an assistant coach at Southern Connecticut.
“It takes an adjustment (going from college to high school); it took an adjustment when I moved up because those kids are bigger, faster, stronger,” Marinan said. “The speed of the game is faster. That makes it easier now; I can see what everybody is doing.”
At Stafford, Mazzone, who coached for 10 years and went 60-35, left, and Gilbert, a former Stafford player and assistant, took over. Stafford went 5-5 last season and the Bulldogs lost two key players – quarterback Luca Houle transferred to Rockville and Joel Budd, the 6-foot-8, 305-pound offensive/defensive lineman, transferred to Enfield.
“This is my seventh year coaching in the program,” Gilbert said. “It’s been good. I have a good group of guys who work hard. There’s been a lot of roster turnover. A lot of new kids are getting opportunities. We have a lot of competition at practice.”
Quinn Fleeting is another coach who played at the program he is now leading and was an assistant for years under his father Rob.
“It’s good,” Fleeting said. “As far as the football and the X’s and O’s, it doesn’t feel like too much of a difference because I’ve been around since I graduated high school and even when I was in college, I’d come back and help out a little bit. When I graduated college in 2018, I was back full time, so I’ve always been around.”
Windsor was unbeaten until its final game last year, when the Warriors lost a heartbreaker in the Class MM championship game on a last-second field goal, 24-21, to Masuk. Windsor lost playmakers Cashmire Lewis and John Manning, who had 208 yards and two touchdowns in the championship game, to graduation, but return quarterback AJ Robinson and junior wide receivers Jayden Compton and Missoni Brown and senior Dominic Jenkins on defense.
Windsor’s quarterback AJ Robinson during practice on Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
“The majority of our starters returning are on the defensive side,” Fleeting said. “We have a lot of skill guys. I think we’ll put on a show this year.”
Teams to watch
Bloomfield has advanced to the state championship game the last six years, going back to 2018 (there was no football in 2020 due to COVID). Last year, the Warhawks, the defending Class S champions, lost to Ansonia, 58-12.
They’ll get right back to it Thursday, as Bloomfield hosts Ansonia for the first time, in its season opener.
“It should be fun,” Bloomfield coach Ty Outlaw said. “We’re trying to get that bad taste out of our mouths from the championship game.”
Bloomfield had a young team last year and many of the key players are back, including senior quarterback Cameron White, senior WR/DB Zion Banton, DE Nejon Bassue, who had 10 sacks last year, senior WR/CB Vernon Kelly and All-State center Kayden Thomas.
East Catholic had only two losses last year and they were both to Bloomfield, the second in the Class S quarterfinals, 22-21. The two teams will play Oct. 31 this season.
Joey Montalvo, whom his coach calls the best player in the state, returns for East Catholic. (Photo by Jessica Hill)
The Eagles return all-around star Joey Montalvo, who has broken school records last year and could break state records this year.
“He’s going to be doing it all,” East Catholic coach Tommy Seaver said. “Wherever we can get him the football is where he’ll be playing. He’ll probably be taking some snaps at quarterback, but he’ll also be doing his regular role at wide receiver and running back and playing all over on defense as well.
“I think he is by far the best player in the state. He’s been working extremely hard and has improved from last year and I think he was the best player in the state last year too.”
Montalvo has 163 catches, 2,967 receiving yards and 35 receiving touchdowns and the state records are 222 catches, 3,677 receiving yards and 50 receiving touchdowns.
East Catholic has a tough opener Friday at Woodland, last year’s Class S semifinalist who lost to Ansonia.
Sheehan advanced to the Class SS final last year, where the Titans lost to Killingly, 48-33.
The Titans return their senior quarterback Jake O’Brien, who passed for 2,227 yards and 30 touchdowns last year. Mason Baehr, a senior tight end, is one of O’Brien’s returning targets and senior All-State lineman AJ Tatro is a four-year starter while senior Josh Durant was a 1,000-yard rusher.
Sheehan wide receiver Jayden Dougherty (10) and junior quarterback Jake O’Brien are heading to the Class SS state championship game after a 49-13 win over Windham in the Class SS semifinal Sunday afternoon (Photo by Lori Riley)
“I think we can be very competitive but we are going to have to overcome an extremely difficult schedule,” coach John Ferrazzi said. “We dropped to Class S and we have to play Fairfield Prep, Xavier, Amity, Shelton and North Haven. Every year our schedule gets more and more difficult.
“We’ll take it week by week and we’ll find a way. Our kids will compete.”
Newington, which went from 2-8 to 10-2 last year under its coach John Acquavita, looks to be competitive again, even though Acquavita said the team doesn’t have a lot of depth yet.
“We’ve got to get to opening night and see how we play for real and that’s when I can gauge how things are,” he said. “We think we could be decent. We have a decent core coming back. We’re just trying to find the backups.”
Josiah Sims, an all-around athlete, returns as a senior running back and receiver and also is one of the team’s top defensive players. Victor Rodriguez, an all-conference player at linebacker last year, will play quarterback. Heath Weeden, who had 118 tackles as a linebacker last season, is also back.
Rockville played a young squad last year and this year, the Rams, which lost in the Class M quarterfinals, will reap the benefits of that.
“I think we’ll be pretty good,” Rockville coach Erick Knickerbocker said. “We return a lot of skill guys that had to play a lot last year. So we should get the trickle down from that. We played a bunch of sophomores a lot last year and they played well.”
Rockville graduated three-year starter Brady Ramsdell and will play two quarterbacks this season, Darren Ghostlaw and Houle, the transfer from Stafford. WR/DB Will Davis and RB/DB Kayden Boland are back as juniors and two players who missed last season, OL/LB Justin Palmer (broken foot) and edge rusher Ethan Steele (broken wrist) will be back.
Senior kicker Molly Wilson had 46 PATs last year, which was among the top 10 in the state.
