Chilean exchange student playing with Batavia girls basketball team

As if learning new plays and going through practice isn't tough enough for American high school basketball players, try being Karin Baleta.

Baleta an exchange student from Chile who is a junior on the Batavia girls basketball team. Spanish is her first language. She has been in America since mid-August and has learned her fair share of the language and American culture since then.

Baleta is just like any typical suburban high school basketball player. She jokes with her friends. She goes to classes and practice. She has a North Face jacket. She wears soft boots with the team sweatpants tucked in them. She just so happens to be in a unique situation of living in a different country for a year of her teenage life.

Baleta's teammates are impressed at how far she has come since the first time they met her. She went from timid and quiet to sarcastic and goofy. It was like she grew up in Batavia with this group of Bulldogs all along.

"She's the biggest goofball I've ever met," junior Kelsey Stone said. "It's fun having her on the team."

"She's really opened up," junior Katie Rueffer added. "She's really funny."

Coach Tim DeBruycker first met her at tryouts. He hasn't brushed up on his Spanish since college, so having Baleta around gave him the opportunity to do so.

DeBruycker said coaching Baleta would be a lot tougher if the other girls weren't around helping him out. After all, this is the first exchange student he has ever coached.

"I rely on the girls to help translate," he said. "The team has really welcomed her in. She gets along well with everyone. Our team philosophy is that we are one big family and she is part of that family."

Baleta is a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl from Punta Arenas, a city in Chile also known as the "city of red roofs" after the red-pained metal roofs that characterized the city for many years.

She played basketball in Punta Arenas and now currently lives with the Behmer family. A daughter, Taylor, is on the pom squad at Batavia.

Baleta said everything about her transition from South America to North America has been easy. She also admitted she doesn't miss home too much.

"I like it here," she said. "I have nice teammates, and everyone has helped me."

Some players, like Melissa Norville, thought having a new player on the Bulldogs was great. What was even better was that she wasn't from around here.

"I thought it was really cool," Norville said. "I love her accent."

For the most part, Baleta is easy to understand. She understands things too, aside from the occasional slang term or phrase on the court or at practice.

"It's hard to learn plays...I can't even imagine going to another country learning a new language," Norville said. "She's picking things up and catching on well."

"She's getting better," Rueffer added. "People guarding her help her out. She's doing a nice job."

Baleta has clocked in some time during games. In Batavia's first game of the season, a 60-30 win over Rockford Jefferson at IMSA/Aurora Christian's tournament, she scored two points and the crowd went crazy.

"When she scored, my heart dropped," Stone said. "It was like, wow, that's awesome. She came to our school and put points on the board to help us win a game."

Baleta has gone from the city of red roofs to the city where its high school colors are red and gold. It's definitely one experience this girl - or her teammates and coaches - will never forget.

"I enjoy having her on the team," DeBruycker said. "She is very funny and she can give the other girls on the team a perspective they may never have thought of before."