Tracy Press

West High's assistant varsity girls basketball coach, Kristina Afan, will step up to head coach next season.

Kristina Afan, who was West High’s assistant varsity girls basketball coach for three years, will step in as the Wolf Pack’s head coach next season. Photo by Bob Brownne/Tracy Press.

Kristina Afan hadn’t necessarily set her sights on the job when she started at West three years ago as a physical-education instructor and assistant basketball coach. But when Joe Lawrence said he was going to step down at the end of the 2007-08 season, she applied for the job.

“It came a little sooner than I thought, but that’s fine,” she said.

In three years, she has had a chance to help guide two teams to the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs. This year, the Wolf Pack made it to the second round against the girls from McClatchy High, who won the section championship last year and lost to rivals from Kennedy High this year in the championship game.

Her team for 2008-09 will lose three key starters as they graduate, but it will include some of the starting players from this year’s team, including Eliza Bowles, second on the team in scoring behind graduating senior Whitney Howard, and Devin Brown and April Bernal.

Afan graduated in 1994 from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, where she played basketball all four years. She also played basketball for two years at Orange Coast College and for two years at California State University, Stanislaus, in Turlock.

Before her teaching and coaching job at West, she was at Anaheim High School, where she was the head coach for the boys junior varsity basketball team and assistant coach for the varsity team.

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written by CM4 , April 30, 2008

GOOD LUCK COACH! Can't wait to support you and your girls next season...West hired a gem!

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written by newsflash , April 30, 2008

police my comments, will you?? fine. but she's still cute.