Saugus truly is The Magnificent Seven

Aside from intense training, good coaching and effective recovery methods, another main reason for Saugus' success is the Centurions' ability to derive motivation from any situation.

That drive was on display again Thursday at the Foothill League championship meet on the 3-mile course at Castaic Lake when the Centurions accomplished something they had never before achieved in program history by sweeping the top seven spots -- hence, the entire all-league roster -- in the girls' varsity race, led by Kaylin Mahoney's victory in 17 minutes, 36 seconds.

"That was our goal coming in. We had to prove to everyone that we have improved," Mahoney said. "With the postseason and nationals coming up, we had to let everybody around the nation know that we've stepped up and we're ready to run against the best teams in the country. The coaches and us had a long pep talk (Wednesday) to get us pumped up about (the postseason), so finishing 1 through 7 was something we had to do (Thursday)."

In doing so, they lowered an already impressive mark of 92:36 from the first league meet Sept. 25 to an incredible 89:01, setting the stage for a memorable next month at Mt. SAC, Woodward Park and the Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon.

"It was a good day," said a modest Saugus coach Rene Paragas. "The thing is we ran hard at the first league meet, so to drop that much time is very encouraging."

Words like "amazing", "incredible" and "scary" were the ones being used by the Saugus runners to describe their performance, which featured Anne Randall dropping 1:27 from the first league meet, Stephanie Bulder 1:16, Keri Molt 53 seconds, Brianna Jauregui 40 seconds, Courtney Wilson 25 seconds, Amber Murakami 23 seconds and Mahoney 30.

After no Saugus runners broke 18 minutes Sept. 25, Jauregui (17:39) and Randall (17:42) both joined Mahoney in eclipsing the barrier Thursday, with Bulder (18:01) and Molt (18:03) right on the cusp, giving Saugus an astounding 27-second gap between its scoring runners. And Murakami's sixth-place effort of 18:05 might have been the most impressive of them all, considering she lost her footing in the first mile and was tripped up by another runner, causing her to be knocked down for the second time in a race this season.

Murakami completed the run with bruised and bloody knees, which were attended to by her father Stan following the race.

"I'll probably be hobbling around for a couple of days, but I'll be OK," Murakami said. "I guess I'm getting pretty good at how fast I get up after being knocked down."

Courtney Wilson (18:22), who surged to a fourth-place effort at the second league meet Oct. 6 at Central Park, gradually pulled away from West Ranch's Bailey Miller to create an 18-second gap over the talented junior by the time she crossed the finish line, securing Saugus' sweep of the top seven spots.