Monarchs' Vaioletama brings passion, intensity

Alexyz Vaioletama might be a sweetheart off the hardcourt, but she is a beast during games.

Mater Dei's girls basketball team needs that beast when it takes on Berkeley for the CIF Division 1 state championship Saturday at 6 p.m. at Power Balance Pavilion Sacramento.

"She is a beast," Mater Dei point guard Jordan Adams said.

But off the court Vaioletama is soft spoken, humble and a generous teammate. She is one of the major reasons Mater Dei is looking to repeat as state and national champion.

"I came here to play basketball but I didn't expect all this to happen," Vaioletama said.

The first gift Vaioletama remembers receiving was a basketball. Her mom, Caroline, was a star player at Arlington High of Riverside and Riverside Community College. Vaioletama said her mother was her inspiration.

"Apparently, she was like the bomb in high school," Vaioletama said of her mom. "The discipline and stuff like that, she was my very first coach."

The ferocious rebounding and toughness also comes from her mom.

"My mom, my aunt, my parents, basically, everybody played basketball," she said.

Mater Dei fans should know that Vaioletama's brothers, Jonan, 11, and Marqus, 9, also will attend Mater Dei one day and they play football and basketball.

"Basketball and football is the big thing in the house," Vaioletama said. "They want to play here. That's their dream. They're huge."

Vaioletama played for the Team USA junior national team the past two summers along with her Mater Dei teammates Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Adams.

"It was a blessing and great opportunity," Vaioletama said. "Just the fact that they aren't just nationally ranked players, but they bring it every single day, every single game. Just the passion that they have to help everybody improve for themselves, for the team, for the coach, for the community and everything.

"It was great. Me, personally, I never thought I'd play for the USA team. One person being on the USA team is great, but three people from the same school and we're family and friends is even better. It was a great opportunity."

Vaioletama had to deal with injuries that kept her out of last year's state title run, but she did not let that get her down.

"We've faced adversity through my four years here," Vaioletama said. "We knew what we had and what we had to do and who we could depend on and who we could go to for help and talking about little things."

Vaioletama's hard work paid off with a full ride scholarship from USC.

"I'm constantly training," Vaioletama said. "It gets kind of hard, but the focus, commitment and intensity is all there. I do have goals and I really want to achieve those goals. I just have to work that hard every day and never let off and I'm getting closer to what I want to accomplish."

Vaioletama helped turn Mater Dei into a national powerhouse and she said she believes she can help the Trojans do the same.

"It's going to be hard but my goal is to get there my freshman year," Vaioletama said. "Final Four my freshman year."

When Vaioletama isn't training she's at church or spending time with her large family.

"Spending time with family or friends, barbeques and church," she said. "That's it."

Contact the writer: carias@ocregister.com