Jalewalia Has Her Own Approach to Courting Stardom : Girls’ basketball: La Quinta senior says she got a good break with foot injury. And she doesn’t want score of Southern Section final to be close--if her team loses.

WESTMINSTER —  Life through Amy Jalewalia’s eyes might seem a bit unorthodox.

For example:

--One of the best things that ever happened to her, she said, was breaking her foot as a freshman.

--If her La Quinta High School basketball team loses its Southern Section 4-A championship game against West Torrance at 6:45 tonight at Cal Poly Pomona, she doesn’t want the score to be close.

--Though her dad is paying her $10 for every three-point basket she makes in the playoffs, she isn’t shooting any more than usual.

It was a stress fracture in her left foot that helped transform her into last season’s state scoring leader at 32 points a game, Jalewalia said.

With her foot in a cast, she couldn’t play. But she could work on her shot with teammate Kris Takayama’s father, who tutored her in the Golden West College gym.

“Her outside shooting has gotten better and better every year,” La Quinta Coach Kevin Kiernan said. “When she was a sophomore, I never would have thought she would have been shooting three-pointers and knocking them down. She has always been quick and a good ballhandler and jumper--all the athletic stuff--but her shot was really ugly when she got here.”

How ugly was it?

‘It was ugly ,” Jalewalia said. “That’s an understatement. I was shooting with two hands over my head, and my arms . . . I just grabbed the ball and threw it up over my head and threw it up. It wasn’t much of a shot.”

Not so these days. Her scoring average has risen from 14 points a game as a sophomore, to 32 last year to 34.3 this season. She holds the Orange County record for most points in a game (60) and she has made 32 of 59 shots from three-point range.

If her dad had started paying her for three-point baskets during the regular season, he would owe her $320. But he is only paying for playoff three-pointers, of which Jalewalia has made six.

Such incentive would have many polishing up their best imitation of Debbie Fischer, Edison’s record-setting three-point shooter. Not Jalewalia.

“She is a pretty unselfish person,” Kiernan said. “She is conscious of everything that goes on out there on the floor. If she thinks we need a better shot at that point or that we need to spread it around or get it inside to Heather Brannan, she will do that. She doesn’t take advantage. I have to get her to take more three-point shots.”

Jalewalia, a 6-foot-1 senior who will attend UCLA, is responsible for breaking the press, hitting the boards (12 rebounds a game), getting the steals (six a game), hitting the outside shot and driving the lane.

“We know what we have to do to win, and we know that Amy is the package defensively and offensively,” Kiernan said. “It revolves around her. Every defense we play, every offense we run is designed to use her talents to the most. Everyone on the team knows it and they have no problem with it.”

This season’s team has just the right chemistry to handle the situation, Kiernan said. “There is no jealousy or anything like that,” he said.

Perhaps that is because, though not the most talented, it is the most mature La Quinta team, with four senior starters and four starters who played together last season.

“This team is able to come back from adversity,” Kiernan said. “This team can fall behind six or seven points and it doesn’t bother us. That is what makes them stand out more than any other team. They can come back.”

Part of the reason is that Jalewalia is not a one-person team. Brannan, a 5-10 forward, averages 15.5 points, and starter Tanya Krill (10.3-point average) came through with 20 points in a semifinal victory over Palm Desert.

Jalewalia and her teammates watched Garden Grove League runner-up Rancho Alamitos lose to Costa Mesa in the 3-A final Wednesday night. Jalewalia empathized with Rancho Alamitos senior forward Jenny Newsome, who lost her last chance at a section title.

Tonight is Jalewalia’s first and last chance at a section title and she doesn’t want to be on the wrong end of a close game.

“I don’t want to sit there and torture myself and think, ‘If I would have made this shot or that shot.’

“I think my teammates and I liked Costa Mesa’s reaction better,” Jalewalia said. “‘We just looked at each other after the game and said, ‘We better win.’ ”

4-A GIRLS’ CHAMPIONSHIP GAME LINEUPS LA QUINTA (26-3) Coach Kevin Kiernan

Name Hgt. Yr. PPG Pos. Janet Kanno 5-5 Sr 3.2 G Lucy Huang 5-5 Sr 6.0 G Amy Jalewalia 6-1 Sr 34.3 G/F Heather Brannan 5-10 Jr 15.5 F Tanya Krill 5-8 Sr 10.3 F

WEST TORRANCE (22-5) Coach Kevin McManus

Name Hgt. Yr. PPG Pos. Rosa Olloque 5-6 Sr 21.8 G Mary Litzenberg 5-7 Sr 15.2 G Tammy Block 5-6 Jr NA G/F Betsy Griffith 5-11 Sr 4.8 F Joori Kim 5-8 Sr 10.1 F