Notre Dame-Belmont right at home in new wrestling program’s first dual meet

While Riordan went on to win the dual meet 24-18, the excitement of Ordonez’s victory was a crowning achievement.

“Everybody knew,” NDB head coach Jeff Sereni said. “That was like the height of the night right there.”

Ordonez, the lone senior on NDB’s five-woman roster, wrestled into the third round before leveraging the top position to control a takedown, then working her opponent’s shoulders to the mat. Sereni said the crowd erupted when the referee’s hand slapped the canvas to signal the pin. Ordonez — “almost like she couldn’t believe she did it,” Sereni said — hopped to her feet smiling ear to ear.

“I saw my coaches and my teammates all going crazy and jumping out of their chairs,” Ordonez said.

The senior was swarmed by her four teammates — Kathy Dinger, Cat Dorf, Taylor Hom and Jiya Panchal — in a special moment for the upstart wrestling program. The grassroots roster is building for the future with little to no experience in combat sports, let alone wrestling.

Ordonez never wrestled before this year. She only participated in one sport in her three previous years at NDB, joining the track team as a junior. She didn’t last the season. But over the summer, she made the decision she will join the United States Marine Corps following her graduation. It was at that point she decided to enroll in a jujitsu class.

By happenstance, she returned to school for her senior year when it was announced NDB was starting a wrestling team.

“It’s more for personal growth,” Ordonez said. “I’m going into the military, so I wanted to start preparing for the personal combat aspect of it. So, that was a big eye-opener.”

The clincher for Ordonez was in meeting Sereni, in learning he served in the Marine Corps.

A 1989 Serra graduate, Sereni wrestled for the Padres, and for one year at Skyline College, before joining the service. He returned to Serra as a wrestling coach in 1997, and ran the program until 2003. He returned in 2017 as a coach for the Peninsula Wrestling Club, which operates out of Serra. In 2022-23, he rejoined the Serra coaching staff under his former assistant coach, now-Padres head coach Mike Klobuchar.

“Once I got back, the talk had already started — girls’ wrestling is exploding,” Sereni said. “Let’s see if we can get Notre Dame going.”

Klobuchar now works on Sereni’s staff at NDB, along with assistants Andrew Monney, Arlene Empleo, Ken Mietz, Chris Quinn, Julio Garcia and Sereni’s son Nate. The girls’ program is affiliated jointly with Serra as a co-ed team in the Central Coast Section.

“As far as CCS is concerned, we’re listed as Serra-Notre Dame,” Sereni said.

NDB becomes the seventh girls’ wrestling team in the West Catholic Athletic League, joining Riordan, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Valley Christian, Bellarmine, St. Francis and Mitty.

With just one senior on the Tigers’ roster, Sereni said he hopes to build the program into a full 14-woman roster and beyond in the coming years.

“I would like to keep the four girls we have and, if we add two or three next year, I’ll take that,” Sereni said, “and just keep adding two or three a year, and in a short time I think we’ll have a full team.”

Last Wednesday’s home opener wasn’t the first taste of competitive wrestling for the team. In fact, the inexperienced Tigers have enjoyed two individual podium finishes at tournaments.

The dual meet at Moore Pavilion, NDB’s only host meet of the season, had the markings of humble beginnings, though. NDB has yet to invest in a wrestling mat, so the school is using a donated mat from Charles Armstrong School in Belmont. The mat is burgundy and yellow, the K-8 school’s colors, with the words “Armstrong Cougars” etched on it.

“We’ll hopefully get that nailed down next year and get our own mat and split those home duals,” Sereni said.

The wrong-color mat didn’t detract from the excitement of the meet.

“For them, it was really a big moment,” Sereni said. “Here they are wearing the thinglet for the first time, walking out there in front of their classmates for the first time. No one knows what to expect.”

Hom technically earned the first win of the meet via forfeit at 110s, being the first NDB wrestler to have her hand raised in victory at Moore Pavilion. Dinger (117s) and Panchal (122s) both lost via pin before Ordonez won her 135s match. Dorf ended the night winning via forfeit at 145s.

The point differential in the team scoring was decided by Riordan’s two pins.

“It actually came down to wrestling, so that was cool,” Sereni said.

The Tigers celebrated another first Tuesday night, traveling to Valley Christian to claim a 24-6 victory. It marks the first dual-meet win in NDB wrestling history.