TMU Insider: Valencia grad embraces commute from OC to TMU

Jasmine Logan, a senior at The Master's University and a Valencia High grad, is coming off one of the most productive offensive seasons in program history. What will 2018 hold? Photo courtesy of John Duncan
Share on facebook
Share
Share on twitter
Tweet
Share on email
Email

There’s a play from The Master’s University women’s soccer team’s 2017 season that embodies both the past and present of its star player.

In the clip, Jasmine Logan, a Valencia High grad whose last name was Parada until she married during the offseason, runs onto a pass, dribbles for 40 yards and directs a left-footed kick inside the far post.

The highlight symbolizes the long road Logan took to becoming last season’s Golden State Athletic Conference co-Player of the Year and the interminable highway she now drives every day from Orange County to attend practice.

When Logan married her husband, Chris, and moved to Orange, California, after a 2017 campaign that saw her score a conference-high 16 goals, she committed to a relatively complicated senior season.

Since late July, Logan has regularly left home at 4:45 a.m. to beat traffic, traveling roughly 60 miles and reaching Master’s in a little over an hour. The biggest challenge has been getting started.

“It’s not super bad,” she said. “It’s an, ‘I don’t want to wake up’ type of thing.”
Logan’s college career was equally slow in starting. She scored three goals in 17 games as a freshman and missed a chunk of her sophomore season due to injury.

Before her junior year, she shifted her mindset, realizing she couldn’t control results, only her effort. Naturally, an avalanche of results followed.

Logan scored a pair of goals in TMU’s second game of 2017 and went on to tally four multi-goal games. The speedy forward notched a hat trick in a 3-3 tie with Menlo on the road in mid-October.

TMU coach Curtis Lewis said it probably wouldn’t be fair to expect Logan to match last year’s offensive production, which propelled the team to a 15-6-1 record and an appearance in the second round of the NAIA national tournament. He’d be happy with 10 goals – but not necessarily because of her long commute.

“As of right now, it doesn’t seem to be impacting her,” he said. “She’s playing quality soccer, scoring goals, being tenacious.”

Teammate Kellian Ahearn, who attended high school in Orange County, knows how snarled Southland highways can be. So, she’s been more than impressed with Logan’s attitude.

“It can take like three hours if there’s traffic,” Ahearn said. “So, honestly, I give so much props to her. She has been awesome. She’s here early. She stays at all the team events. I haven’t heard her complain once. When you have one of your top players having a struggle and a drive every single day and she isn’t complaining, it’s a really special thing.”

Logan has taken the same approach to her daily drive as she has to her final season, which opens Aug. 18 in Florida against Southeastern University. For her, it’s all about serving the team.

“I need to persevere through it,” said Logan, who will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies in December and hopes to begin her teaching credential next year. “It’s my last semester. I need to enjoy it as much as I can and be there for the team. I like being able to spend time with the team and growing that bond. I don’t want to separate from that, even if I’m married.”

Incidentally, the last Mustang before Logan to win conference Player of the Year was also a Santa Clarita Valley product who married while in school.

Katie Farris, previously Trevino, graduated from Hart High School and got married before the 2014 season at Master’s. She went on to score 18 goals with five assists that year, winning the GSAC’s top individual honor along the way.

Logan is resisting the pressure to live up to last season.

“I think it’s good for me to realize people aren’t expecting me to get 16 goals again, or 18 or 20, what if I get five?” she said. “I’m just here to serve the team.”

For more Information on The Master’s University Athletics, visit GoMustangs.com or follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @TMUAthletics.

Related To This Story

Latest NEWS