Miller Boys Hope to Contend in Waterman Division

Less than two years out of college, Bill McCutcheon has taken his first varsity high school head coaching job, taking over at the helm of the Millburn boys lacrosse team.

The 2005 Chatham grad and former high school All-American is determined to turn the Millers into perennial contenders.

McCutcheon inherits a Millburn team that went 6-11 a year ago and has had one winning season over the past four years.

“We want to work with the kids to help create and foster an attitude of winning,” McCutcheon said. “We’ve got a solid senior class that is going to provide a lot of support.”

A year ago the locals started off with a 3-2 record, but went on to lose six of their next seven contests and finished the season on a 3-9 slide.

“They did pretty well in the early get go,” McCutcheon said of last year’s squad. “Then there were a lot of one goal and close games where they were up but unable to finish it off.”

With 11 seniors returning and a host of capable underclassmen, McCutcheon is very optimistic about his team’s level of ability on the field. He said that this is not a situation where things have to built from the ground up.

“We’re not walking into a team of guys who don’t know how to play this sport,” he said. “We just have to fine tune it. …We have a lot of talent on this team.”

The top returning players, according to McCutcheon, are seniors Brian Baker and Mark Funk. Baker is a midfielder, while Funk is a lefty attacker. Sophomore Ben Cebula is a slasher, whom McCutcheon called the team’s best pure shooter. That trio will make up Millburn’s go-to scoring threats.

“We have a group of kids who have played together for a while. They understand how they move on the field,” McCutcheon said. “Our defense is one of our strengths as well. We have a lot of good athletes, I think our guys are in great shape and we have a lot of bigger guys who can move.”

While McCutcheon said he is taking things one day at a time and is still learning about his team, he did say he expects the squad to be competitive within the New Jersey Interscholastic Lacrosse League Waterman Division and to possibly qualify for the state playoffs.

“We have a team wide goal of not only competing in this conference and doing well, but finishing near the top of the division,” McCutcheon said. “It’s going to come down to a lot of close games for these teams. I see us in a lot of dogfights.”

McCutcheon, who served as an assistant coach at Chatham last season and spent the summer coaching in Australia, has plans of building Millburn into a strong program year in and year out. He has the team running college style offenses and said that by and large he runs the squad as if he were coaching in college.

“I’d like to build it to the point where we are constantly an above .500 team, where we aren’t laying down for anyone,” he said.

Millburn’s season gets kicked off on Saturday morning at home against Tom’s River South.