| Title: | Head Coach |
| Phone: | 323 259 2702 |
| Email: | hcollins@oxy.edu |
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Heather Collins enters her second season as the head coach of the Occidental College women's volleyball team.
In her first season at Oxy, Collins led the team to its best season in two decades. The Tigers went 22-9, won their first Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament Championship in school history and made the NCAA Division III playoffs for the first time in more than 20 years, finishing the season in the Round of 32.
Before coming to Oxy in the summer of 2011, Collins was an as assistant coach at Loyola Marymount for the previous 13 seasons. Collins helped guide LMU to six NCAA postseasons, reaching the second round in three of those six appearances.
Collins is a former All-American at UC Santa Barbara, where she led the Gauchos to a four-year record of 101-29, including four appearances in the NCAA Tournament. In her final season as a Gaucho, UCSB posted a 28-4 mark and finished with a No. 4 national ranking.
Collins followed up her successful playing career with the Gauchos as an assistant coach during the 1995 and 1996 seasons. In those two seasons, the Gauchos posted a 26-9 record in 1995 and a 23-9 record in 1996, twice advancing to the NCAA second round.
Collins gained experience playing professionally competing in the National Volleyball Association in 1997 after winning championships with both the National Grass Volleyball Association and National Sand Volleyball Association in 1996.
Collins is a 1996 graduate of UC Santa Barbara, earning a degree in liberal arts. She also completed her Masters degree in education at LMU.
Heather resides in Eagle Rock with her husband, Joe Gonzalez, and daughter Elle.
| Title: | Assistant Coach |
| Phone: | 323 259 2702 |
Prior to joining the Tigers staff, Hernandez was coaching at UC Irvine. There she mentored two All-Big West setters, including Taryn Robertson, who was voted All-West Region honorable mention in 2008. Robertson, the first UCI setter to be recognized by the AVCA, was ranked nationally in assist average her last two years, concluding the 2009 campaign No. 23 in the country.
Hernandez helped to bring in two ranked recruiting classes, spearheading the '07 effort that resulted in a No. 21 ranking by PrepVolleyball.com and assisted in the '09 effort that yielded the 24th-best incoming class (PrepVolleyball.com).
In the summer of 2005, Hernandez was a member of the A2 High Performance USA National Team coaching staff, training and preparing junior elite volleyball athletes to become future members of the Women's Olympic volleyball team.
Hernandez coached at Oregon State for three seasons (1999-01), helping the Beavers reach the NCAA postseason for the first time in 18 years in 2001. She mentored Laura Collins to All-Pac-10 honors in her final season as at OSU and is only one of two Beavers to have been named Pac-10 Player of the Week more than once.
Hernandez played at Long Beach State from 1989-92, guiding the Forty-Niners to the Final Four three of her four years, and was a member of the 1989 national championship team. Inducted into the Long Beach State Hall of Fame in 2003, Hernandez was a 1991 and 1992 AVCA All-America first-team selection and garnered two AVCA All-Region honors. Hernandez was also a two-time All-Big West choice and as a senior, Volleyball Magazine tabbed her first-team All-American, having named her honorable mention the previous year. She ranks third all-time at Long Beach State with 4,796 career assists and is eighth with 115 career aces. Hernandez also holds the second and fourth slots in the single-season record book, recording 1,735 assists in 1990 and 1,617 in 1991.
This summer, Sabrina's 16's club team Mizuno Long Beach won the Gold Medal at the Junior Olympics.
Hernandez graduated in 1994 with a degree in history and prior to joining the UC Irvine staff, was a special education teacher. She began her coaching career as an assistant coach at Oregon State from 1999-2001.
She currently resides in Long Beach with her husband, Josh, and their cat, Maddux.
| Title: | Assistant Coach |
| Phone: | 323 259 2702 |
Briana Fields enters her first season as an assistant coach for the Occidental College volleyball team.
Fields brings a wealth of knowledge to the Oxy staff, most recently having served as a head coach for club volleyball in Costa Mesa for three years.
As a player, Fields earned junior college All-America honors in 2009 at Orange Coast College and was a two-time team Most Valuable Player and team captain. She also earned first team All-Conference honors twice, as well as All-Region and All-State honors. Fields transferred to CSU Los Angeles in 2010 and made an immediate impact for the Golden Eagles in her first year with the program. She finished her collegiate career with California Collegiate Athletic Association All-Academic Award.
She also participated in the Junior National Team program in Fort Lauderdale as a standout at Edison High School.
