On Monday, Grays Harbor College named Matthew Vargas its new head men’s basketball coach.

Vargas is a former National Junior College Athletics Association athletic director, head men’s basketball coach and assistant coach. In his seven years of junior college coaching, Vargas entered the postseason three times, including regional championship games in 2010, 2014 and 2015.

The 2010 trip turned into a national junior college title run while he was an assistant coach at Pima Community College in Tucson. That team had several of the high school players he had coached in Louisiana. And over the course of six years at Tohono O’odham Community College in Southern Arizona, he presented, developed and launched a men’s basketball program.

“We are excited about Coach Vargas guiding our men’s basketball program,” said GHC athletic director Tom Sutera. “He has the uncanny ability to build relationships, and we look for him to do fantastic things with the program.”

The Choker men finished the 2018 season with a 1-13 record.