Daily Pilot High School Female Athlete of the Week: Selfless Faller driving Fountain Valley’s cross-country success

The sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears is one of the most commonly used phrases in sports.

One of the most underappreciated aspects of sports is the selfless sacrifice of glory for one’s self in order to further the success of the team.

Fountain Valley High girls’ cross-country runner Ashley Faller is a shining example of athletes who do just that. The junior’s considerable talent could make her a frontrunner in most Sunset League races, but rather than run out with the leaders, Faller stays behind to shepherd along her herd of Barons.

“She understands that it’s a sacrifice for the frontrunner to maintain a competitive pack,” Barons coach Jerry Palazzo said. “The frontrunner has to hold up and maybe give up an individual success.

“The reality is I think it’s harder to run at 90-95 percent because it hurts just the same, but you’re not getting that glory that the frontrunner in the race is getting, that propels them.”

Faller took second with a time of 18 minutes 14 seconds in the league finals at Central Park in Huntington Beach last Saturday. Fountain Valley bested Los Alamitos 28-52 to repeat as the league champion.

The Barons’ ace has been the lead runner in both of the back-to-back league championships. Fountain Valley won both titles in similar fashion, via a pack strategy.

In 2016, Faller was the pacesetter for a group of five Barons that finished seven seconds apart.

Last Saturday, Faller was joined by freshman Julia Svartstrom (third, 18:21) and junior Sara Feitz (fifth, 18:27) in the last mile. This year’s Fountain Valley team is ranked ninth in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 poll.

“What I’ve found is that if you get a team that really cares about each other, they’ll work harder for their teammates than they’ll work for themselves sometimes,” Palazzo said.

“You can let yourself down and know that you will ultimately give yourself a break. You’re less inclined to let down your teammates. Knowing that they might think the same way … it becomes a real powerful bond.”

Faller’s introduction to the sport of distance running came when she turned running the mile into an internal competition while at Fulton Middle School in Fountain Valley. She did not necessarily like running, but she approached it the same way she does her academics — she had to keep improving.

“I just started being like, ‘Oh, I may not like running, but I seem to be pretty good at it,’” Faller said. “Then in middle school, every time you ran the mile, it was like a big deal to me. I was all nervous because I was like, ‘I need to do better.’”

In eighth grade, she briefly joined Palazzo’s Equalizers running club for a two-month stint. The two would be reunited when Faller entered high school, as Palazzo came aboard as a co-coach of the Barons with Brian Bivens.

When Palazzo and Faller first met, Faller was in eighth grade and she could run a mile in 5:58. Her time improved to 5:26 as a freshman, and it dropped to 5:07 as a sophomore.

“The reason she is able to make that progress is that she is such a fierce competitor,” Palazzo said. “She doesn’t just train to be more fit. She trains for the next race.”

Ahead for Faller is a chance to defy the instincts of pack running and join the lead pack. The large number of teams partaking in the CIF postseason races magnifies the importance of running to the best of one’s capabilities, especially with the quality of opponents in Division 1.

Palazzo has been a consistent critic of the Riverside City Cross-Country Course, the current home of the section’s preliminaries and championships. He says that it is crucial to be able to get off the starting line at a sprint, before the competitors are subjected to lungs full of dust from the dirt that is kicked up in front of them.

“Getting out fast, to a certain degree, is really important because you don’t want to get stuck behind all those people and have to work to move up,” Faller said. “Moving up is harder than just maintaining a speed.”

She added that her short and quick stride helps her maintain her energy, as opposed to those with longer strides who run along at a gallop.

Faller came into her junior season hoping to eclipse the 18-minute threshold. She has done it twice, at two of the faster courses around. She ran 17:33 at the Woodbridge Invitational, bettering that time the following week with a personal record of 17:18 at the Dana Hills Invitational.

Faller is keeping a team-centric approach with her goals.

“I have faith in our team,” she said. “It really just depends on our last two runners and how close they can get to our pack. I’m really confident that we can make it to [CIF] finals.”

Ashley Faller

Born: Aug. 31, 2001

Hometown: Fountain Valley

Height: 5 feet 4

Weight: 105 pounds

Sport: Cross-country

Year: Junior

Coaches: Jerry Palazzo and Brian Bivens

Favorite food: Potatoes

Favorite movie: “Kill Bill”

Favorite athletic moment: Faller looks back fondly on her sophomore year, when the Barons perfectly executed a pack-running race. The team would win its first Sunset League title since 2007, as Faller, Feitz, Isabella Guerra, Kristen Prado and Maddie Jahshan crossed the finish line with just a seven-second gap separating the whole group.

Week in review: The junior paced the Barons in 18:14, leading Fountain Valley’s successful championship repeat attempt at the Sunset League finals last Saturday. The Barons defeated Los Alamitos 28-52 at Central Park in Huntington Beach.

Andrew.Turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner