Grade/School: Sophomore, Bullard High

She's qualified because: Better known as "Pookie," she won a second-straight Central Section individual championship by going 21-0 and improving to 40-2 in two seasons. She also made The Bee All-Star team as a doubles player in tennis in the fall. And that coincided with her standout play as a setter in volleyball.

She said it: "For us to keep pushing her, she has to play 1 against 2 in practice, and she still wins. She teaches herself, improves herself, see what she has to do and does it herself." — Bullard coach Natalie Teague

She was always different, right out of the womb.

That's why Stacey Gonzalez returned from that Puerto Rican hospital in 1994, took yet another look at her newborn daughter and said, "You're so cute, I'm going to call you Pookie."

Today, back in the States, in the Central Valley, in Fresno and at Bullard High, few know Alexis Gonzalez.

But many sure as heck know Pookie.

And it's no fun to play badminton against her.

"Everybody's scared of her," Knights coach Natalie Teague said of The Bee's unbeaten Player of the Year. "She hits the birdie so hard she bleeds welts."

With shoulder, arm and leg power suggesting she could deliver a blow for Bullard's Division I championship football team, Gonzalez went 21-0 this season while winning a second-straight Central Section individual tournament singles title.

She also was a Bee All-Star in tennis in the fall, when she starred concurrently as a setter in volleyball.

And she's only completed her sophomore year.

"That's what an amazing kind of girl she is," Teague says. "I told her when she signs a letter of intent to college, please let me know; I want to be there."

If it's up to Gonzalez, as distant in the future as it may be, that will be in volleyball — the primary passion of the tireless 16-year-old.

"Even if I'm tired," she says, "I will not let people know because then it seems like I'm weak."

Volleyball?

Flying in the face of your father, Francisco Gonzalez, the former tennis tour professional, Puerto Rican Davis Club player and current longtime head pro at Sierra Sport & Racquet Club?

Flying in the face of your aunt, the former Shawna Goedhard, once the No. 1 tennis player at Fresno State?

"Yes," Gonzalez says, "because volleyball is quick, loud, chaotic and full of energy."

"That," mom says, "just described her personality right there."

Sports, mom continues, "is what fuels" her daughter. "She would never, ever say she's tired. She would never ever say, ‘Oh, I've GOT to go play' or ‘that match went SO long.' I mean, she loves playing sports."

The mother then applauds her daughter's coaches — Kieran Roblee in volleyball, Daren Carter in tennis and Teague in badminton — for not only sharing her daughter, but encouraging her in the broad athletic journey.

"That's the blessing in all of it," says mom, citing an example where she's zipping her daughter from a tennis match in Reedley to a volleyball game in Madera while the teen is changing uniforms in the car, "the perfect coaches you want your child to spend time with. So we're really fortunate. They're so supportive."

The mentors — all of them — can be comforted: Gonzalez will continue to play all three sports until she graduates.

"I made a goal as a freshman to make varsity in every sport, and that came through," she says. "Then it was to play all of them through my senior year, so there's no giving up, no quitting."