Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year: Sequoia’s Soana Afu

The lone senior starter for either team was the Sequoia Cherokees’ 6-1 center, Afu — the Daily Journal Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year — who once upon a time set forth on a career as a four-year varsity starter in 2015-16 across town at Woodside. And those lessons learned from being the young kid on the court, as the only freshman on the Wildcats’ varsity roster, were immeasurable.

“I know what it’s like to be on an older team,” Afu said. “So, I’ve always used that to be very open with my younger players, and be positive and keep everybody motivated.”

In cultivating this strong character, Afu always showed immense talent. So, it shook the Peninsula Athletic League to its foundation last season when she transferred to Sequoia. The year prior to her arrival, the Cherokees settled for seventh place in the PAL South Division. They shot up to third place in 2017-18, Afu’s first year with the team.

“Me being a transfer, I had to get used to a lot of things,” Afu said. “So it was a lot of nerves. It was funny, no one expected us to be that good. Even me, I didn’t expect it. … It was amazing the way were able to turn things around.”

They sure did. This season Sequoia delivered on the promise of its longtime motto — Purple Reign.

With Afu anchoring the post as part of an exceptionally deep starting five — including sophomores Caitlyn Dulsky, Jacqueline Kurland, Alexis Jackson and junior Talita Falepapalangi — Sequoia earned PAL royalty by bringing home the first CCS championship in program history.

Afu’s tenacious post presence has long been revered, especially on offense, where she was in the neighborhood of averaging a double-double this season, falling percentage points shy in the rebound department.

Hammering to the hoop is her bread and butter. But this year she added a weapon that impressed head coach Steve Picchi above all else, her willingness to take the foul and shoot confidently and effectively from the free-throw line.

“A lot of big shots and … the free-throw shooting was huge,” Picchi said. “People were putting her on the line and she was making them pay for it.”

Afu may have found her shooting touch from the stripe on the road to becoming a complete player, but what really elevated her game to the next level was her defensive play.

Defense is a virtue long preached by Picchi and Sequoia assistant coach Mike Ciardella. And it was this virtue Sequoia’s brain trust used as a way to calm Afu during a restless start to her junior season, when she was forced to sit out until the start of league play due to transfer rules.

“I was very, very excited and had adrenaline going through me,” Afu said of her debut at Sequoia last season. “And I was a little bit nervous … but my coach told me to just relax and focus on defense. Defense always comes first and everything else will follow.”

For her first three varsity seasons, the paint was Afu’s domain. With ambitions to play at a four-year college next year, and a twin tower complement alongside her in Falepapalangi, who stands 6-2, Afu set out to stretch her defensive range.

So, this year, she put her long arms and imposing vertical reach to the test. And by the time the postseason rolled around, it was a common sight to see Afu flying in the face of midrange jumpers and 3-point shots alike.

With this, Picchi’s math — defense comes first and everything else follows — was proved as Afu’s offense rose to new heights. She developed her left hand to the point where, at times, it looked like her dominant side. It isn’t; she’s a natural right-hander. She also looked to shake the stigma she was limited to the post, picking her spots to channel her inner Kevin Durant in taking aim from the outside as well

“I want to become a versatile player,” Afu said. “I just want to be more diverse. If a defender takes one thing away from me, I want to be able to work on things quick to see what I can do to work around that.”

It’s no accident Sequoia showed valuable redundancy in each of the facets of Afu’s game.

Falepapalangi showed she could step up in the post when she scored a game-high 22 points in the CCS Division I championship game, a 50-34 win over Palo Alto. Kurland’s leadership translates as an adept ball-handling point guard. Dulsky is a revered sharpshooter. Jackson is perhaps the best perimeter defender in the PAL.

Yet it was Afu who reached into all worlds — electric, kinetic and, down the stretch, even magic — as the purveyor of the Purple Reign.

“The key to Soana, in my view, was her game was peaking at the end of the season and going into playoffs,” Picchi said. “So, I would say, at the end of her senior season, she was at her best.”