Please indulge me, but I love it when some of our Youth excel, even without the Community support enjoyed by most other Ethnicities.

Again, no "hints" of her Italian Heritage.

====================================================== 
The Times' All Star Girls' Cross-Country Team
GOALS OF TEAM WORK FOR LIZA PASCIUTO

Junior earned numerous individual honors, but helping Murrieta Valley 
win section and state titles proved far more satisfying.

Los Angeles Times
By John Ortega
Times Staff Writer

December 22 2002

Individual accolades were plentiful for junior Liza Pasciuto of Murrieta Valley during cross-country season.

But it was a desire to lead Murrieta Valley to its first Southern Section and state Division I championships, not to add to her already impressive running resume, that motivated Pasciuto to excel.

Yes, she was pleased to win her first section championship and second consecutive Inland Empire Challenge title.

Sure, she was happy about finishing second in the state championships for the second time in three years.

But none of those accomplishments would have meant as much to The Times' girls' cross-country runner of the year if Murrieta Valley had failed to win the section and state championships.

"This year was more about the team than me," said the outgoing Pasciuto. "I wanted to do whatever I could to help our team do as well as we could."

Last year, Murrieta Valley was expected to contend for a top-three finish in the Southern Section Division I final at Mt. San Antonio College but placed 11th after Pasciuto collapsed while battling Emily Vince of Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula for the lead with a mile left.

Medical tests failed to pinpoint the cause of Pasciuto's collapse, but there was no question that she and her Nighthawk teammates wanted to come back with a vengeance this year.

They won the Bronco and Woodbridge invitationals in the first two weeks of the season and finished third while running against a national-class field in the Great American Cross-Country Festival in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 28.

That was followed by runner-up finishes to national power Hesperia Sultana in the Inland Empire Challenge on Oct. 12 and in the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational two weeks later. But Pasciuto and Co. never lost track of their ultimate goals.

They accomplished the first goal Nov. 23, when Pasciuto's first-place finish paced Murrieta Valley to a 70-102 victory over runner-up Thousand Oaks in the section championships at Mt. SAC.

The second was attained a week later when the Nighthawks edged Thousand Oaks, 61-68, for the state title at Woodward Park in Fresno.

"We had talked about doing this since last December," Murrieta Valley co-Coach Steve Chavez said at the time. "Everything we had done in training has been done to get us to this point."

Murrieta Valley's performance in the state meet -- the Nighthawks cut three seconds off the previous team record for the course before Sultana smashed that mark in the Division II race two hours later -- propelled the Nighthawks from 11th to seventh in Harrier magazine's final national poll. But Pasciuto says the section final is the race she'll remember most.

"I really needed to run well there because of what happened last year," Pasciuto said. "To help us win the [section] title on that course was really exciting." 

Goals of Team Work for Pasciuto 
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-hspasciuto22dec22,0,3986200.story?coll
=la%2Dheadlines%2Dsports