Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year: Cap’s Melesungu Afeaki

At a young age — well before her four varsity seasons at Capuchino, even before a legendary era at Parkside Middle School, and even before her grade school days in San Bruno rec league — Afeaki committed herself to basketball. The results led her to being chosen, undeniably, as the Daily Journal Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year.

“Honestly, I think it’s just being able to develop that commitment and dedication to one thing,” Afeaki said. “Of course, I always wanted to play other sports for fun and stuff, but I always had the goal to play Division I basketball and I knew that came with sacrificing some other things … and I was able to do that. And it worked well for me, and I was able to develop and have fun at the same time.”

Afeaki’s road to realizing that NCAA Division I dream — she is committed to play at University of San Diego next season — paved the way for the most successful era in the history of Cap girls’ basketball. With a legendary effort by Afeaki in the Central Coast Section Division III championship game, scoring 21 points in a 36-29 victory over archrival Mills, the Lady Mustangs claimed the first CCS title in program history.

The 6-2 forward was by far the most dominant player on the court that night. This is a dynamic to which she is accustomed. Sure, the Mustangs boasted plenty of talent, from senior guard Hailey Hoff — herself a Division I commit, headed to Pepperdine University — to year-round basketball point guard Arianna Jordan, to two-sport athlete Sarah Chavez.

Such dominance wasn’t always the way for Afeaki, though. In fact, as difficult as it is to think the now 6-2 senior was once the shrimp on the court, that was precisely the dynamic at play when she was learning the sport as a young grade schooler, growing up playing one-on-one against her older brother, Daniel, who is 10 years older and now stands 6-8.

“For me, it was I always just wanted to be better than my brother,” Afeaki said. “He was 10 years older than me, but I didn’t care.”

The disparity in age and height served Afeaki well. It made her hone other elements of her game. While many a player who possess her combination of height and strength are content to dominate the post, she grew up developing the crafty side of the game, based on ball handling, shooting and — the most dangerous weapon in her arsenal, according to Cap head coach Steve Hoff — speed.

“I’ve said it all along, it’s not her height that makes the difference, it’s the speed at her height … that makes her different,” Steve Hoff said.

Not that Cap didn’t rely on her as a post presence.

Afeaki — known as “Kiki” to everyone in Cap world, and as “Keeks” to her longtime coach — averaged a double-double this season, leading the team with 18.8 points and 12.5 rebounds per game. She edged out Hailey Hoff in the shooting department, who also averaged a double-double with 18.4 ppg and 10.0 rpg. But, while Hailey Hoff was an explosive 3-point specialist, knocking down 107 3s this season, Afeaki ranked second on the team with 23 3s.

“Keeks ended up being one of our better 3-point shooters toward the end of the year and that was because we worked on it,” Steve Hoff said. “And that wasn’t because that was going to help us win more … but at the next level, she’s going to need that jump shot.”

The weapon has always been in Afeaki’s arsenal. Like many Cap players’ versatile components, however, it was refined in the era of San Bruno basketball overseen by Steve Hoff. Because his daughter Hailey was such a hoops enthusiast, he started coaching the core group of players that what would become Cap’s 2021-22 CCS championship team when they were in fifth grade, forming Prospects Basketball Academy in the San Bruno rec league and later transitioning to Bay City Basketball on the AAU circuit.

There were some growing pains at first — Afeaki recalls Bay City losing its first organized game 63-18, “but I remember I had a blast,” she said — but it wasn’t long before they found their footing. Through three years at Parkside Middle School, the team posted an undefeated 32-0 record.

But with the stage set for the team to take its act to the high school stage, with the core of players naturally readying to play at Cap, Afeaki almost landed elsewhere as a high schooler. While she hails from San Bruno, her family was forced to move following the San Bruno pipeline explosion in 2010, with their home on Claremont Drive one block away from the blast.

The Afeaki family relocated to South San Francisco. And after Afeaki’s final year at Parkside, she had a decision to make. She considered going the private-school route. But, in an effort to keep the band together, she ultimately moved back to San Bruno to be able to attend Cap.

“Growing up, my brothers went to Cap, so I was already familiar with the school,” Afeaki said. “But the biggest thing for me is I didn’t want to leave my friends and I didn’t want to be in a new environment. For me, change has always been a scary thing … and I just wanted to stick with what I was familiar with.”

Afeaki’s four years at Cap were no fairy tale, at least not at first.

Her freshman season, the Mustangs eked into the CCS playoffs with a win in the Division III play-in game and made a valiant run into the tournament quarterfinals. But her sophomore season was derailed by injury, when Afeaki tore the meniscus in her left knee. While she returned for her junior season, the campaign was overshadowed by the COVID pandemic. And while the Mustangs made the most of the abbreviated spring season of 2021 with a 10-0 record against Peninsula Athletic League South Division opponents, they were quickly dismissed from the CCS Open Division tournament in a 80-29 loss to Mitty.

This put a white-hot spotlight on Cap’s goals in 2021-22, and the team’s dream of realizing a CCS championship.

“It was really present in our minds because last year we weren’t able to have CCS, and that was our biggest goal,” Afeaki said.

Steve Hoff had a different goal in mind, though. Sure, winning was something to strive for, but to the coach who had led the group since the core players were fifth graders, winning was merely a byproduct of getting them where they needed to go. And where Afeaki needed to go, beyond her glory days in San Bruno, was the Division I collegiate ranks, where at 6-2 she would have to develop her skills as a swing forward to survive.

“With me, this might be sacrilege, but I don’t care about winning,” Steve Hoff said. “I could have won a lot more games now in my six years at Capuchino if I ran a different system. … My goal is always to give these kids a chance to develop and play beyond high school.”

Now, with Cap presently boasting two college players from the 2021 graduating class — Jaisa Gamble is a freshman at the Division I program at UC San Diego, and Crystle Gumban is a freshman at the NAIA program at San Diego Christian College — the Mustangs are set to double their collegiate contingent with Afeaki and Hailey Hoff both set to attend West Coast Conference schools.

“Which is super exciting for us, for her family and our family to be able to get together and do that,” Steve Hoff said.

And, yes, Afeaki has gone on to earn bragging rights around the house as well, having long since found a way to level the playing field against her brother Daniel.

“I always thought I was a better shooter,” Afeaki said. “In middle school, thanks to the pump fakes, I started getting wins against him.”

The original content of this article has been edited.