By Karen Billing | KarenB@rsfreview.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune
PUBLISHED: March 11, 2025 at 10:19 AM PDT

In the last 15 years, Coach Jono Zissi has built the Torrey Pines High School men’s lacrosse program into a San Diego section heavyweight, a favorite.

With Coach Z at the helm, Torrey Pines lacrosse has won six consecutive CIF titles and 11 total—they haven’t dropped a single game to a San Diego team in six years. The Falcons have cracked the national top 25 rankings 12 times and many Torrey Pines grads have gone off to play at the next level, for top college lacrosse programs.

“This is my 15th year at Torrey and 23rd of coaching lacrosse. I feel like a grandpa at this point,” joked Zissi. “I see alumni parents all around town and they ask me ‘What’s new?’ and I say ‘Honestly nothing, just different kids’.”

A Torrey Pines lacrosse game plan: Just reload.

Zissi is a Boston native who landed in San Diego to attend grad school at the University of San Diego, earning his master’s in education and literacy. The multi-sport athlete played college lacrosse at Tufts University and while in grad school working as a substitute teacher, he discovered how much he enjoyed working with kids in lacrosse clinics and summer camps, and how it kept sports a part of his life: “An extension of playing is coaching, you’re never leaving the locker room.”

Those initial clinics and camps he worked were with Adrenaline Lacrosse, where he would eventually become a partner. He now runs the local club program RC Lacrosse and the West Coast Stars, taking all of the best kids from all over California to play teams from the East Coast.

His high school lacrosse coaching career launched in 2003, when he started the program at University of San Diego High School (now Cathedral Catholic). From Cathedral he went on to teach and coach at The Bishop’s School for three years, winning two Coastal Conference titles.

While Bishop’s was building and getting really good, he said he made the jump to Torrey in 2011 because it was such a big school with an even bigger talent pool. For some of those first years,  he was doing double duty, coaching the R. Roger Rowe School lacrosse teams in the afternoon and the Falcons at night.

At Torrey Pines, he has been able to create the lacrosse program he always wished existed.

“I came into a situation where there were tons of kids and really talented kids, but the culture change had to be a complete 180,” he said, noting at the time there were some discipline issues and the team seemed to continually underachieve despite their gifts. “We set new standards and rules. Our culture has been built on community service and non-lacrosse related things. Lacrosse skills is least of my focus…What seperates Torrey is all the things we do off the field that don’t have anything to do with lacrosse.”

Zissi encourages all of his high school players to get involved with youth lacrosse as much as they can, to help build a fellowship in the sport among the players working their way up. The team participates in community service and volunteer projects and for many years has partnered with Friends of Jaclyn, which pairs children with cancer to a sports team. The team adopted their third forever teammate with then 12-year-old Omar Carlon three years ago. Omar, who is cancer-free, spends time with the Falcons when he can since his family moved to Temecula.

Inside the team room, Zissi is known to give life talks to his players, talking a lot about gratitude and focusing on something bigger than themselves. A teacher at heart, Zissi uses the team room and the lacrosse field as his classroom to help educate his players about mental skills, communication and being a man of character. At times his methods may seem unconventional, but Zissi sees the number of kids who have gone on to play and find success in college and remain involved in supporting the program as proof that he’s doing a good job.

“Ultimately, it’s my job as a coach to ensure these athletes leave the program better than they were when they got here, both as competitors and as young men,” Zissi said. “We’re going for our seventh title in a row, and sure, the obvious goal is to keep winning. But the real goal is to keep taking a new class of kids every year and maximize their life experience and maximize their abilities.”

Class of 2025 college commitments include Eli Ray (Manhattan), Cole Loizu (Tampa), Tomas Anderson (Skidmore), Blake Barberie (Rollins), John Prior (Army), Tommy McCool (Tufts) and Joey Levenberg (Johns Hopkins). Four juniors in the class of 2026 have also already committed to colleges including Max Wenger(Bucknell), Bridger Stockton (Drexel), Foster Huang (Syracuse) and Ross Jacobsen (Dartmouth)

Among alumni standouts, Miles Botkiss is a senior captain this year at Harvard.

“It has been my dream since as far back as I can remember, playing on the Falcons youth teams and coming to all the games watching all the Torrey players and idolizing them, to one day play for this program,” said senior team captain and West Point commit John Prior. “The culture Coach Z has brought to this school, with such a heavy focus on attention to detail and all the small things that aren’t lacrosse-based are what separates us from others. Guys love to play for him, he’s the ultimate player’s coach, always pushing you to be better.”

The 2025 season has just begun and the Falcons took down Coronado in their Feb. 28 opener, followed by a win over Cathedral Catholic. As there are only a handful of teams in San Diego, half of their schedule is teams from Orange County, San Francisco and out-of-state squads such as Jesuit Dallas, where they will travel to play.

Like most years they are coming into the season with a number one ranking as last year’s defending champions, despite having graduated a “ginormous” senior class of 18 kids. Coach Z said while this year’s team may be inexperienced, the group of driven and high-achieving young men have been waiting in the wings for their turn.

It’s admittedly not an easy place to play, as there can be a lot of pressure given the program’s historic run, the tradition of winning seen on the walls of the team room. Pressure, Coach Z said, is a privilege—they practice and work very hard to win every single game.

“It’s not easy to play lacrosse at Torrey, if it was everyone would do it,” Zissi said.  “There’s always a bullseye on our backs and everyone is trying to beat Torrey….we get everybody’s best game for sure.”

As a lacrosse “grandpa,” Zissi coached a lot of this year’s seniors when they were in middle school. He’s had junior Ross Jacobsen as a player since second grade. Living in Rancho Santa Fe and coaching so very many kids over the years, he has built up strong local roots and maintains close connections with many of his former players. He estimates he’s gone to over 25 weddings and Coach Z  is even the godfather to one former player’s kid.

“You became family, that’s my team’s whole credo,” says Zissi. “That’s why I do this.”

“It’s my favorite thing in the world.”