Girls’ Athlete of the Week : Another Title Is Top Goal for Jalewalia

Last season, the La Quinta High School girls’ basketball team won the Garden Grove League title for the seventh consecutive year and finished 22-4.

The top six players from that squad have graduated. This season’s team starts four juniors and a sophomore.

With that much youth, the Aztecs appeared to be a year away from another great season.

But if Amy Jalewalia has anything to say about it, La Quinta is going to make things happen this season.

Jalewalia, The Times’ athlete of the week, has set her goal on finishing the league season 14-0 and winning another league title.

“I don’t want to be the first team in (8) years to lose the league title,” she said.

She already has accomplished one of the goals she set this year, to break the school record for points in a game. Jalewalia scored 48 points, 10 more than the record, in an 83-23 romp over El Modena in the first round of the La Quinta tournament Wednesday.

She added 35 points and 21 rebounds in a 77-29 semifinal victory over Westminster. She scored 23 points in the championship game, but the defending champion Aztecs lost in overtime, 68-64, to North Salinas.

Jalewalia, a 6-foot junior who plays guard, forward and center, was named to the all-tournament team for the second consecutive year. She has been a member of the varsity since her freshman year.

Despite her success, Jalewalia, 16, has not concentrated on basketball very long. She played basketball in a youth league in fifth grade but did not play again until she decided to go out for the high school summer league before her freshman year at La Quinta.

She’s concentrating on basketball so much that this year she decided to forgo another season on a traveling club soccer team.

Jalewalia’s full first name is Amardeep. When she was in elementary school, her friends used to tease her about her name. “Around the block we had a little joke, they used call me Amardeep beep, beep!” she said.

Now friends call her Amy. Her unusual name is from her father, who is from India and speaks Punjabi. In that language her first name means “always light.”

TOP PERFORMERS

Lynn Murray of Esperanza was named the MVP of the Cerritos girls’ soccer tournament after scoring two goals in a 4-1 victory over Temple City Monday in the championship at Gahr High School.

Senior center Holly Anderson scored 28 points in Capistrano Valley’s 40-31 victory over Esperanza Thursday.

Amy Jalewalia

La Quinta High School

Position: Guard/forward/center

Height, Class: 6-0, Junior

Last Week: Scored 106 points in 3 games to lead La Quinta to the final of its tournament. In a first-round victory she set the school record for points in a game with 48. She was named to the all-tournament team.

Season: Jalewalia leads the team in scoring in a 26.7-point average.