Summer Sports Notebook /Sam Farmer : Pasqua Lost for Year After Surgery

Jenny Pasqua, a 1987 first-team all-Glendale and second-team all-Rio Hondo League volleyball player, was released Monday from Valley Presbyterian Hospital after major reconstructive surgery to repair ligament tears and cartilage damage in her right knee.

Pasqua, a junior at La Canada High, will have to sit out this season and it is not likely that she will be able to begin working out until March. Team practices begin Sept. 1.

“Once you can’t play, you realize how much you miss it,” said Pasqua, who injured her knee while skiing last spring but was initially told it was sprained. “It’s just hard to watch everyone.”

La Canada, which won the Rio Hondo League championship and posted a 19-1 overall record, lost in the second round of the Southern Southern 3-A Division playoffs to eventual champion San Gabriel.

Add La Canada: The Spartan boys’ summer basketball team finished its busiest and most successful campaign ever with a 31-14 record.

The team won the La Canada League championship and placed second in both the Hoover and Saugus leagues.

“Our performance bodes very well for this season,” said assistant Coach Jim Harvey, whose team will look to continue last season’s 25-3 pace.

One notable absence in the early summer games was 6-foot, 7-inch junior center Chad Givens. Givens, who may be La Canada’s most heavily recruited college basketball prospect ever, sustained an ankle injury which, Harvey said, still hampers his play.

All-around challenge: Rich Boccia, head of the Glendale YMCA’s gymnastics program, is anxious to pit his bumper crop of exceptional juniors against the country’s best on Labor Day weekend.

“We have a wealth of talent and we’re working toward the 1992 Games,” said Boccia, who also serves as chairman for the U.S. Gymnastics Federation Junior Boys’ Program. His squad boasts five members who have been selected to the junior national team, including Khemarin Sang, Trevor Hoagland, Puff Sincharoen, Adam Klein and Danny Janeck.

Boccia will get his chance to see his team perform in the Santa Monica Beach Gymfest, Sept. 3-5.