Cross Country. Not a sport that everyone knows about or even likes. It is a sport that most runners consider a “love/hate” sport. Some of the Saugus male runners do it because of the program and traditions. Some do it for the experience of putting themselves through something rough, to strengthen themselves physically and mentally. Some do it for the results of the race. But most do it because they have nothing to do, or they didn’t find success in their previous sport or desired sport. Most boys on the Saugus XC team found cross country to be a backup sport or something to do because their “first love” didn’t workout. Half of these guys wanted redemption, to showcase their athletic compacities somewhere else and the other half wanted something to do to kill time. But that’s what is special about this program.
The Saugus boys program always finds a way to find talent among “nothing.” They are able to turn nothing into something. This all began when Coach Rene Paragas was hired to coach a very angry boys team after some unfair treatment. He was able to bring home multiple CIF titles and one state championship in 2013. He also had a ton of success on the girls side as well.
He was also known for coaching many Saugus legends such as Brian Zabilski, arguably the greatest male distance runner to come out of Saugus. He had personal bests of 4:14 in the mile and 8:49 in the 3200m (Foothill league record). He was the 2014 California XC State Champion, 2014 Nike XC Nationals Qualifier, 2015 CIF-SS Masters 3200m Champion, and with a 4th place finish in the state XC meet in 2013 helped power the Saugus boys to a team State Championship title. His legacy lives on forever and reflects on the program to this day.
Like Zabilski, most of these boys go on to run for NCAA/NAIA schools or just for fun for the rest of their lives, some of which have never ran before. After Coach Paragas’s departure from the program, there was a brief period for a track season where JV/Frosh-Soph boys were coached by Coach Berns.
Coach Berns couldn’t do much with these boys since he already had his full attention on the entire girls team. Seeing this, Coach Sergey Sushchikh, the varsity boys coach, decided in the summer of 2023 to take over the entire boys program. Coach Sergey has a long history of running and is highly intelligent both on the field and off. Coach Sergey attended Dos Pueblos High School and had many accomplishments. He placed 5th in the California XC State Meet in Division 2 and qualified for Footlocker Nationals meet and placed 28th overall as a senior. After a stellar high school XC career, he then continued his running career at UCLA. There he participated on 3 NCAA XC nationals teams and scored at the 2015 Pac-12 Track & Field championships in the 10k by placing 8th overall. After taking some time off running after college, he began to volunteer at Saugus as an assistant coach in 2019 due to the influence of his girlfriend at the time and now wife, Amber Sushchikh Murakami, who was a Saugus legend and was his teammate at UCLA.
Coach Sergey still continues his running career as a semi-professional competing in road races from marathons all the way down to 5ks and competes on the track from 1500m to 5k/10ks, meanwhile taking over the role of coaching the entire boys team down from frosh-soph all the way to varsity. I had a chance to interview Coach Sergey about his thoughts of the boys program and what his goals are for this season. I first asked him for a breakdown of the boys team, he responded with: “The boys team this year is very large, with almost 50 boys on the roster. We have a great mix of younger and older athletes, some with many years of running experience and others just starting out for the first time. My goals as a coach are to build a competitive team on the state level and to help runners achieve their goals through continuous improvement. So even the slowest runner that has never run before has a place on the team as long as they are committed to getting better.”
I then asked for his goals for the season: “My goal for the XC team is to win the Foothill League Title in all 3 divisions (F/S, JV, Varsity) and to compete at the California State Meet in Division 2. We have a ton of talent on the team and many of our top runners have been in the program for several years. They understand the training and how to use it to get better. We haven’t come close to showing what we are capable of yet and it’s exciting to show what we can do.” He then said how “staying healthy is the main challenge. This includes injuries and sickness. It will be important to walk the fine line between training really hard and not over-doing it causing eventual breakdown and injury. During October and November, we need to be extra diligent in avoiding sickness as the cold/flu is more prevalent.” He strongly stressed the importance of the end of October. For most of the team October is the goal and going off at league finals is the main goal, since most of the team is done after October 31st, league finals.
For the top 12 boys they continue to train till CIF finals. Once state qualification has been achieved, 3 boys are “retired” and top 9 continue to train, 2 as backups and 7 as starters. Coach Sergey takes some of his training ideologies from the greats. He was able to describe his training ideology to me “My training ideology comes from several sources, but it comes down to continuous improvement. Starting off at a training load that the athletes can handle and slowly building up season over season and year over year. I don’t believe there is an upper limit to the amount of training a runner can eventually do, but it has to come from a progression. I don’t believe in running all-out in practice and prefer most of the work to come from high volume instead of intensity. Although, there is a time and place for high intensity work, specifically during the middle and end of the competitive season.”
This type of training is unique especially compared to other schools in the Santa Clarita Valley. Every school takes a different approach and Saugus boys take the approach of going all in late to the season when it all matters. He closed out the interview with some strong words: “Being in Southern California in the Foothill League is a privilege as we race some of the best runners and teams in the state in our own backyard. This helps us become better as they say ‘to be the best, you need to compete with the best.’”
Having Coach Sergey is a privilege to the XC program, continuing to inspire runners everyday and has built many legends from the ground up. One being Senior Captain Sebastian Peraza. Sebastian Peraza is currently the number one runner on the team and I was able to interview him as well. These were his thoughts on the program: “The boys team is very united, as we are all close together aiming towards our ultimate goals. We are all brothers and push each other beyond our limits. I have PRs of 4:20 in the 1600m, 1:59 in the 800m, and a 9:19 3200m. Last year I got 10th in the state meet for Division 1. This year we are in Division 2 which makes it a little easier, but it will still be a challenge. Our goals for the season is to try and win league and make it to the state meet. We are a very special program which is because of the unity as we are always making plans to get the boys closer together. We are a dangerous team and what’s dangerous about us is how bad we want it and how bad they want to bounce back from last XC season’s mess ups. We are going to be facing multiple challenges this year and the challenges I especially will face are hating it some days and not wanting to go running, but having to overcome that will also be a challenge as laziness is very hard to overcome for most.”
Sebastian Peraza looks to make a statement as his high school running career is coming to an end. His thoughts on running after high school is “to be determined.” Safe to say these boys are looking to make a “BANG” and surprise many of the competition. These boys really want to make the state meet, but who knows if they could really win it all?
