SAN DIEGO’S GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

Aranzazu Alberdi, Hilltop, Metro South Bay League

In this list of do-it-alls, Alberdi, 17, could be the most versatile.

She has 4 letters in soccer and 3 each in tennis and softball.

She is on the council for Club International for foreign exchange students, has been a junior and senior representative for Students Against Drunk Driving, was chosen as a dancer for a student talent show, was on the homecoming court, participated in a Junior Miss pageant and last summer was a camp counselor.

“I like trying new things and experimenting and not the same old thing,” she said.

As a freshman she made the varsity soccer team but had no inkling she would finish with 10 varsity letters.

“I thought it would be hard with school, and I wouldn’t have time,” she said. “In 10th grade, I thought I couldn’t put up with all of it.”

But she did and started playing tennis and softball as well as soccer.

“It was a lot of hard work and still is,” she said. “I liked it so much I just made time. I’d leave at 7 in the morning and wouldn’t get back until after 5:30. Than I’d eat and start my homework around 8 until about 11:30. I was lucky if I could get to bed early.”

She has maintained a 3.26 GPA, 3.0 in college prep classes.

“My mom sometimes thought I would go insane,” she said.

She said the transition from soccer to softball was the hardest for her to make.

“Since the sports overlap, I don’t get a chance to get back into it,” she said.

Ian Cumming, Alberdi’s softball coach when she was a sophomore, said she is not a great athlete.

“She has good skills, but she’s not an elite skill person,” Cumming said. “She makes up for that with her mental powers.”

Alberdi attributes a lot of that to her older brother Jose, who was a jai-alai player in Tijuana while he was still at Hilltop.

“He taught me how to approach situations in sports,” she said. “If you’re tired, he would push me a little more. I always have the attitude I’m going to do my best.

“My brother really influenced me in soccer since I was a little girl. (He) was always the one who would push me. He wanted a little brother, and he considered me his little brother. That’s what got me started. I tried ballet and gymnastics, and it wasn’t me.”

She was a second-team all-section soccer defender last season, but Alberdi said she will play tennis in college.