Coaching Staff

Volleyball - Head Coach

Email: Jason Smith

Getting to the edge of a Region I title every year might be pretty satisfying to most coaches. But Jason Smith isn’t ‘most coaches’, which is why he seems more determined than usual to get his Lady Matadors back in the winners’ circle as he heads into his third year of his second stint as the head coach of the Matador Volleyball program. Smith has certainly proven to every Matador fan what his teams can accomplish in several different instances. His first tour of AWC duty began in 2006, when he infused a strong burst of talent into an already-successful Matadors’ program and returned them to powerhouse status. His ‘06 Lady Mats’ squad won the school’s 7th straight Region I Volleyball title and earned a berth in the District A Finals against top-10 national power Salt Lake Community College. A year later, the 26-win Matadors won their first ACCAC Volleyball regular season title since 2004 and their 8th straight Region I Championship before again falling just short of an NJCAA Tournament berth in the District A Championship against the top team in the nation. He then moved back up to the four-year level (where he’d been prior to joining AWC in 2006), spending the next two seasons as the lead assistant for the volleyball team at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, helping lead the Lady Rebs to a 16-win season in 2008. By the end of 2009, Smith found he missed the community college kind of excitement, and jumped at the chance to return to Yuma when Karen Glover resigned to move to the four-year level herself in the spring of 2010. Since then, he’s brought two Lady Matador squads to the Region I Finals, and the 19 wins that the 2009 squad racked up were the most the program had enjoyed since Smith departed the first time. More importantly, he’s also continued the high academic standards that he set for the team originally, and all four of his Matador Volleyball squads have been named NJCAA All-Academic Teams, earning the honor by having a cumulative 3.0 grade point average or higher (with 2012 alums Nina Rogers & Kailey Smith earning NJCAA Academic All-American individual honors as well). Smith’s first stop on the four-year college level was at the University of Utah, where he was the volleyball team’s assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for three seasons. The Lady Utes won two Mountain West Conference titles during those three years-thanks to Smith’s nationally recognized recruiting classes. Smith came to Utah from NCAA Division II Ferris State, where as an assistant, he helped lead them to 2 20-win seasons and an NCAA Division II Tournament bid. Smith has also been an assistant at Iowa Western CC when they finished 10th in the NJCAA Tournament, and got his coaching start as an assistant and head coach at NAIA school Avila College. Smith’s playing days were spent in Iowa at Graceland University, where he was a 3-time all-region selection. Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in business and economics while at Graceland. Smith is also a newlywed, having tied the knot this past May with his longtime love, AWC Assistant Volleyball Coach Jennifer Lake.

Leo Lozano

Volleyball - Assistant Coach

E-Mail:  Leo Lozano

It will likely be a more relaxed but just as focused Leo Lozano that takes his spot on the bench this fall, since he’s now had a full season as a full-time assistant coach under his belt. Lozano had to hit the ground running after being hired by Jason Smith in January of 2011 to be both Jason’s main assistant and the team’s strength & conditioning coach, and Smith was extremely pleased at how well-conditioned the team was at the end of last season-especially compared to other teams in the conference. Smith wasn’t completely surprised, though, since he saw Lozano make that kind of difference at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas as well when the two were cohorts in the Rebels’ athletic department three years ago. Lozano learned the various methods of strength and conditioning while spending three years (in two different stints) at Long Beach State, and then two seasons at UNLV as strength and conditioning intern & coach. He worked with six different women’s sports teams at Long Beach State, then expanded his scope to men’s sports at UNLV, helping to implement strength & conditioning programs for track & field, women’s soccer, women’s basketball and men’s football; while completely designing and implementing the athletic performance program for the Lady Rebels’ Volleyball team.
Lozano is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist with the National Strength & Conditioning Association, as well as a Level 1 Coach with USA Track & Field, a Sports Performance Coach with USA Weightlifting and a certified personal trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine. His varied resume’ also includes four years as a Sports Performance Coach at Champions Quest in Los Alamitos, California and time as a personal trainer in northern California. As a student-athlete, Lozano was a star football player and wrestler at Pioneer High School in San Jose, California, played college football at San Jose City College and pro football for the minor league Inglewood Blackhawks. He was even a member of the Long Beach State Crew Team. 

Molly Moran

Volleyball - Assistant Coach

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Not many Lady Matador Volleyball student-athletes were praised as much during their career at AWC for their leadership and ‘student of the game’ skills as much as Molly Moran was. That fact makes you understand why just one short year after she finished off a two-year career as the team captain for the Matador Volleyball team, Moran returns to Yuma to begin her coaching career as Jason Smith’s assistant. Moran knows exactly what it takes to prove to a college coach that you belong on the court, since she had to fight for every minute of playing time she got after arriving on the AWC campus in the summer of 2009. The native of Glendale, Arizona, came to AWC after being part of back-to-back Arizona 5A State Championship Volleyball teams at Xavier Preparatory High School in Phoenix, but had to work her way slowly up the depth chart in her first year as a Matador Libero. Despite the limited playing time she saw as a freshman, one of the first things that Smith noticed when he returned to the Matador Volleyball program for Moran’s sophomore year was how much poise Moran showed on and off the floor, and how much her teammates responded to her. Moran’s defense (led the team in digs (9th-best in the ACCAC) and leadership was two of the main reasons Smith’s young 2010 team won 13 of their last 14 regular season matches to power their way into the Region I Finals. Off the court, Moran was even more of a leader as the SGA President at AWC in 2010-11, and was one of the top students in the school, earning Phi Theta Kappa and NJCAA Academic All-American honors as a sophomore with a 3.78 cumulative grade point average while earned her Associate’s Degree-graduating with honors. All of this earned Moran a academic/athletic scholarship to Rockhurst University in Missouri. Now, Moran has returned to his native state of Arizona to lend those leadership skills and knowledge of the game to Smith’s new charges, while learning new skills as a coach for the first time, and working to earn her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with an emphasis in addictions treatment and therapy along the way.

James Jones

Volleyball - Assistant Coach

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James Jones will be one of two new faces on the Matador Volleyball bench, and his expertise will help not only Jason Smith on the court and in the huddle, but will also help Leo Lozano with the team’s conditioning and preparation. As far as the X’s & O’s of volleyball, while the Matadors may be the first college program that Jones has been a coach with, his preparation to get to this point has been impressive on the high school level. He was the varsity head volleyball coach at Duncan High School on the Grand Canyon State side of the Arizona-New Mexico border from 2009-11. Those two short years both resulted in playoff berths for the Lady Wildkats, including reaching the Regional finals against Vertias Preparatory Academy. Jones decided to move from one side of the state to the other after that, and is not only starting his first year as a Matador but also as an Antelope Ram, since he’ll be the varsity head volleyball coach in Wellton this coming season as well. As far as helping setting an example of conditioning for the Lady Matador student-athletes, all they need to do to check what Jones did during his college career on the track and on the cross country routes. Jones was in top condition athletically while a runner at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was a nine-time NAIA National Championship Tournament qualifier, was a member of the 2004 NAIA Cross Country National Championship runner-up, and earned both the Most Valuable Runner Award and Leadership Award at Aquinas. He was just as fit academically, since was a member of the NAIA Academic National Championship Team four years in a row. Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Physical Education while at Aquinas, and is currently working towards earning his Master’s degree from Northern Arizona University.

 Jennifer Lake

Volleyball - Assistant Coach

Jennifer Lake begins her 2nd season as the Lady Matadors’ Director of Volleyball Operations, helping the coaching staff and student-athletes with day-to-day office and game day logistics. Lake took her position well beyond office administration last year, using social media to help promote the volleyball program as well as the team’s matches and camps through Facebook and other means; and coordinating team travel along with pre-game & post-game meals. Lake has been able to effectively funnel her vast experience in administrative duties, managerial duties, technology and social networking into her first experience working with a college athletic program. Lake came to Yuma after spending over 15 years working for a construction company in Las Vegas, Nevada, ascending the ladder from courier and receptionist to Accounts Receivable Manager, Credit and Collections Manager, and Contract Billings Manager. This career required very detailed oriented tasks, along with great organizational skills, while reporting to upper management, and also directing a small team to perform tasks for the business to grow and flourish. During the construction boom, she was able to be an integral part of doubling the company’s gross profits, while maintaining a very small past due collections. Jennifer also enjoys spending time on creating various websites, as well as working to expand her company, Jenn’s Gems, which specializes in handcrafted gemstone jewelry, She also dotes on the two loves of her life: her cat, Pebbles, and her brand-new husband, AWC Head Volleyball Coach Jason Smith.

Jennifer Tagaban

Volleyball - Assistant Coach

E-Mail:  Jennifer Tagaban

While the workload around Arizona Western College gets larger for Jennifer Tagaban, there is one constant in her college life: her appearance on the Lady Matador bench as she begins her sixth season on the Matador Volleyball coaching staff. Tagaban’s storied history with the school has now spanned eight years-all of them with the Matadors getting to the Region I Finals or beyond. Her start as a Matador came in the summer of 2002, when after the Pomona, California, native moved to Yuma during elementary school, became a dominating two-year starting setter for the Lady Raiders of Cibola High School and earned All-Southwest Region honors as a senior, Tagaban signed on with then-Lady Matadors’ Head Volleyball Coach James Finley, and began climbing the depth chart quickly. She went from the Lady Matadors’ bench to Finley’s starting lineup to earning All-ACCAC Honorable Mention honors as a sophomore. Tagaban helped lead the Lady Mats to a pair of Region I titles, NJCAA Tournament berths and 7th-place finishes in the nation during her playing career, then decided to close her athletic career to focus solely on academics as she took her Associate’s degree from AWC to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 2006. By the time she came home to Yuma again, Finley had moved on, but Jason Smith took over and immediately gave Tagaban the offer she’d hoped for: to start her coaching career as his assistant. Besides her two years playing at AWC, Tagaban also knows the volleyball floor at ‘The House’ well from her three years of playing club volleyball for Club Salsa under Finley and former Lady Matadors’ Head Volleyball Coach Kerry Messersmith on the same court. In addition to her volleyball duties at AWC, Tagaban begins her 2nd year as the school’s Coordinator of Residential Life.