Orange girls’ soccer team has a new head coach, but not a lot will change for the Lions under former assistant Jo Bondra.
After serving as Dani Giulvezan’s assistant for three seasons, Bondra was officially approved by the Board of Education on Tuesday.
“It’s definitely exciting,” she said. “It’s not a totally new school because I’ve been an assistant there for the last three years, so I know the school and the athletic director, and all the people I’ll be working with.”
Bondra also is familiar with the players she’ll coach and she’s confident that familiarity will allow a smooth transition.
“It definitely makes it easier because you don’t have to spend time getting to know them, so I don’t have to take a couple of weeks to learn names and where people are comfortable playing. We can kind of jump right into the soccer stuff and game planning.”
Joining Bondra as an assistant coach is her brother Nick.
Both of the Bondras played high school soccer at Mayfield and played under the same coach at Bluffton University.
“I’m excited about it,” she said. “We both played for the same head coach at Bluffton and have gone through a similar system. We think the same way in what kind of formations we want to run.”
Adding to Bondra’s comfort level is the fact she’s been the head softball coach at Mentor for the past several years.
The Cardinals have won the Greater Cleveland Conference title in two of the past three seasons, including a perfect 10-0 conference run this spring.
She hopes to develop a similar winning culture at Orange.
“It’s all about the culture,” she said. “That’s something we have been talking about the last few years and it’s definitely getting there. I know I have a big freshman class coming in, which I don’t think we’ve had for a while, and a lot of those kids are experienced, so we’re excited to kind of get around them and see what they can do. It’s even getting involved in the youth programs and the middle school so we can build that culture from a young age, and we’re excited to do that.”
