[3] After his playing days were over he got behind the bench at Grand Rapids High School with Gus Hendrickson, a man he would eventually replace as head coach.
The next season saw continued improvement when the Bulldogs won the 1984 WCHA men's ice hockey tournament before marching all the way to the 1984 National Championship game but ended up losing to Bowling Green in quadruple overtime.
Duluth finished the 1985 NCAA Tournament in third place, losing in the semifinal to eventual champion Rensselaer though this time only in triple overtime.
[7] Sertich replaced an ineffective Tim Watters after the latter began the year 1-7-1 and sought to fix the fortunes of the once-great Huskies, salvaging the season by going 7-17-3 the rest of the way.
Sertich spent two more years in Houghton calling it quits a second time and while the results weren't shown in the standings, there was a definite improvement with the character of the team.