STARKVILLE — As Chloe Malau’ulu raced toward the right-field fence, her family ran with her.
Seated in the outfield grass, they all ran up to cheer on the Mississippi State sophomore outfielder as she hauled in the softball just shy of the wall.
“You know how Samoans are: They’re hyping up everybody after everything,” Malau’ulu said. “It could be a strike. It could be someone got a good hit or a good catch. The crowd went wild every single time.”
The sizable Malau’ulu clan made a big impression in numbers and in volume as they came to watch Chloe play in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic last weekend in Palm Springs, California. Malau’ulu is from Long Beach, a two-hour trek west on Interstate 10, so her family packed up and made the drive when the Bulldogs came to town.
“It was just like an ambush of my family,” Malau’ulu said. “They were just all there.”
Between her own relatives and the contingent of senior Fa Leilua — Malau’ulu’s cousin by marriage, who hails from nearby Hawthorne, California — Malau’ulu estimated that about 50 family members made the trip to watch the Golden State-grown Bulldogs go 3-2 from Thursday to Saturday.
And Malau’ulu and Leilua weren’t the only ones who brought their own cheering sections.
Head coach Samantha Ricketts, who is from San Jose, California, said her parents and her aunt were on hand to watch her and her sister Keilani, who plays for Team USA and was participating in the same tournament.
Senior Alyssa Loza, from Torrance — between Hawthorne and Long Beach — greeted her parents and her younger sister. For the first time in a while, she said, her grandmother and uncle also got to see her play.
“It was kind of a great home feeling,” Loza said. “Home away from home.”
A plan and a feast
As an assistant coach under Vann Stuedeman, Ricketts pushed for Mississippi State to play in the Mary Nutter Classic in 2018 and did the same again for 2020.
“My favorite thing about that tournament is just the quality of the competition,” she said. “Everybody you’re playing out there is a great time, a postseason team, and it’s a good test for us early on to see where we stand and what we need to work on to continue forward.”
And as soon as the Bulldogs’ participation in the event was officially announced, the team’s California-born players locked in their plans.
“‘Hey, call in sick that weekend, because it’s gonna be a great weekend,'” Leilua told her family when she heard the news.
Malau’ulu’s mom snapped into action, already devising specific plans.
“My mom was like, ‘OK, we’re gonna get an Airbnb, then we’re gonna have the team come over for dinner, and we’re just gonna have a great time with all the parents getting to know everybody,'” Malau’ulu said.
As it turned out, that was exactly what happened. After Mississippi State beat Oregon State and lost to Oregon in the tournament’s first day Feb. 20, the Malau’ulus hosted a toana’i — Samoan for feast — at their Airbnb in Palm Springs that evening.
But even despite an extensive guest list — other players’ parents, Ricketts’ parents, even the team’s bus driver — there was still too much food to go around, typical of Samoan culture.
Sweet and sour meatballs and Lahaina (Hawaii) fried chicken were big hits.
“Nobody really knew what they were eating, but it was good,” Malau’ulu said.
That jibed with a message from her father George to the Bulldogs players who were unfamiliar with some of the cuisine. (Half the team mistakenly ate the rice paper on which the Malau’ulus served manapua, a Chinese pork bun with a twist on the end.)
Ricketts recalled George’s words: “‘If you don’t know what it is, just try it. It’s gonna be good.'”
At the feast, the Malau’ulus honored their daughter’s new school as well as her Samoan heritage. A custom-made cake paid homage to the team, and the Malau’ulus handed out kukui-bead necklaces with the Mississippi State logo on them.
“A lot of little touches, a lot of personalization — just really showing their investment in our program,” Ricketts said.
For the California-born Bulldogs, none of whom had been home since Christmas, being able to mix seeing family and bonding with their team was just what they needed.
“I think just being able to go home and allow our families to come watch us play and representing Mississippi State the best that we can was a really great experience,” Loza said.
‘Representing my dad’
Leilua brought plenty of family to Palm Springs, including her mother Paiao, her brothers and sister, her first cousins, her uncles and even her former travel ball teammates.
But there was someone missing.
Leilua’s father Sio died in 2017, and she sat out the 2018 season at Arizona State before transferring to Mississippi State. Grieving, she nearly stepped away from softball entirely.
“Everything I did on the field was about representing my dad: the hard work he and I did over the summer, the long days, the long car drives,” Leilua said.
To her, having her family show up meant more than just a way to see them — her relatives were representing her father by watching her play in the tournament.
“There was no doubt that they were coming,” she said. “They were like, ‘I know that Fa’s dad would be there, so let’s be there for her.'”
Though the busy schedule of the softball season helps her keep her mind off the long distance from home, which can get hard during the fall when softball and family are both a ways away.
So seeing her family show up — for her father and for her — meant a lot.
“It was lovely to see them,” she said. “I was just kind of feeling home for a bit, especially being away since Christmas. It was good to see them.”
As she took the field in Palm Springs over the weekend, her teammates were uncomfortably warm in the 85-degree desert weather. Not Leilua, though. With her family behind her, she was back where she belonged.
“I was like, ‘Hey, this is a great opportunity to just soak it all in,'” she said. “It was great to sweat again, feel the Vitamin D and all that stuff, so it was pretty cool. It was just one of those days where it’s nice to be back home.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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