DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Michelle Figueroa’s left knee still bothers her. She wears a brace, but the brace has torn and she waits for a new one.

It’s a running joke between the Costa Mesa High senior and her coach, Jim Weeks. Sometimes the question for Figueroa isn’t whether she’ll have pain on a given game night, but how much pain.

“She’s the oldest high school senior there ever was,” Weeks said. “I tell her I’m going to be 60, and she’s older than I am.”

But Figueroa also brings the pain herself. The point guard did it all last year, and she’s picked up where she left off.

Figueroa, the Daily Pilot Girls’ Athlete of the Week, averaged 21.8 points per game in four games last week at the Fountain Valley Tournament, helping the Mustangs to a third-place finish.

For the season, Figueroa is averaging 20.3 points per game for Costa Mesa (3-3). Her 7.3 rebounds per game average is second on the team to fellow senior Jasmine Werdel, and Figueroa easily leads the team in assists (24) and steals (18).

Sore left knee or not, Figueroa knows how to fill up a stat sheet. It’s something she started doing last season, when she averaged 9.8 points per game and earned first-team All-CIF Southern Section Division IV-AA status.

She’s more than doubled that total this year as Costa Mesa lost its double-double machine, last year’s Orange Coast League MVP Jennifer Courtney, to graduation. Figueroa is particularly effective at driving the lane and getting to the line — she’s already shot 53 free throws in Mesa’s first six games, netting 37.

But, if there’s one person Figueroa’s point totals don’t impress, it’s herself.

“Yeah, I am a senior and I want to lead the team, but I don’t really try to score points just to be a leader,” Figueroa said. “Points don’t matter to me. I like assists, but at times I know I have to [drive in and create contact] for us to win. That’s when I go in and take the opportunity ... I’ll do whatever I have to do for us to win.”

It was an opportunity Figueroa wasn’t sure she would get. After her junior year, which saw Costa Mesa win league and advance all the way to the Division IV-AA championship game at Long Beach State’s Walter Pyramid, Figueroa thought she might move to Colombia to live with her mother, Gloria Giraldo.

Her younger brother Junior, 8, has done just that. But Figueroa, who said she talks to her mother on the phone fairly often, has stayed in Orange County. She moved in with her brother, John Restrepo, this summer.

Figueroa credited Restrepo, 25, and his former girlfriend Lisa Kosena as very positive influences. Kosena is a former college soccer player for Cal State Fullerton, which John Restrepo will graduate from later this month.

“Thanks to John, I’m the player I am right now,” Figueroa said. “He’s always taking me to the gym, making me work out. He’s just been a great role model. I don’t know what I would do without him. And Lisa, because of her I was able to forget about my problems. She’s like a sister to me and I love her.”

With her mother out of the country, Figueroa also occasionally talks to her father, Omar. But Omar Figueroa lives in Sacramento after her parents’ divorce and isn’t a huge part of his daughter’s life.

“He calls me every day, but I don’t always answer the phone,” Michelle Figueroa said. “I probably talk to him one or two times a week. I try to talk to him as much as possible, because he is my dad, but sometimes I just don’t really know what to talk about with him.”

Weeks knows when to talk to his point guard, too, if she gets angry when the team is struggling. But with Figueroa leading the fast break, he said the main thing is that her teammates need to be ready for the pass.

The Mustangs do have more weapons than just Figueroa, with teammates Werdel, Kathy Trinh and Amy Gentling all averaging between eight and 10 points per game.

“We give her a lot of chances to be creative,” Weeks said. “If we’ve got four girls who can score, and the defense is trying to keep them from scoring, then it’s very hard to keep her from getting to the basket. We tell her, ‘See the pass,’ and she does that. If they’re up there running, then she’s up there trying to get the ball to them.”

Figueroa’s drive has never been in question. She said that drive has been furthered this season whenever she sees the CIF runner-up banner from last year in the gym.

This year, Figueroa and her teammates want to go back.

“Mr. Weeks tells us he knows we can do it again, and it’s just so exciting,” Figueroa said. “Every time I hear the words, ‘Going back to The Pyramid,’ it just makes me want it more.”

It’s a want that no amount of knee pain can take away.

“I try to ignore the pain, but sometimes it’s just too much,” Figueroa said. “But, oh well, I’m tough.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].