Photo by Micaela Castillo

Story by Billy Lopez, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

SANTA CLARITA, CA — Michael Sahagun made University of La Verne school history, running the second-fastest 8K of all-time at 24:57.2 in the 2021 Masters Invitational. 

Men's Invite Race

Sahagun ultimately finished 7th place overall but went into the Leopard record books with his run on Saturday. Following Sahagun was Marcello Martinez who finished 35th putting up an impressive time of 26:13.7, just shy of the top-10 mark for La Verne school history. The Leopards' Jose Reyes finished 40th followed by Edward Carillo who notched 45th overall. TK Berhe finished with a time of 26:32.5 to place in the top-50. Rounding out the race for La Verne were Santiago Herrera, Jared Albaugh, and Efren Martin in that order.

"I was really proud of the adjustments the guys made," said University of La Verne cross country head coach Jamie Norton said. "They came out of last week knowing they could perform better and showed it today with more patient execution. As a team we beat a lot of D1/D2/NAIA schools, and also were the top SCIAC team in the race."

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Men's Open Race

The Leopards were led by Chris Sanchez who impressively improved by 1:41 from his time last week at University San Diego. "I'm excited to see his work pay off and he's going to continue to improve throughout the year," coach Norton said. 

Women's Open Race

The Leopards were led by Andrea Camacho who finished 12th with a time of 20:51.7. Following Camacho for La Verne was Rebecca Lee who notched a top-30 finish at 27th. Rounding out the race for the Leopards was Alexia Alvarez who finished 45th overall. Despite not being able to field a scoring team in the race, Coach Norton was very pleased with the effort from the three women who ran for La Verne. "Andrea led the way in 12th, she fought through a tough middle of the race and had a great kick to pull back a few more women at the end. Rebecca ran her best race of the season and was engaged and competitive to take 26th. Our captain Alexia passed so many people in the second half of the race to set a lifetime 5K PR."

Moving Forward

Coach Norton loves the progress the teams have shown thus far and knows this is only the beginning. "We showed some flashes today of where we can get to down the road, but I know the best has still yet to come for this group. We're only just starting to get our legs under us with training. It was a really exciting day for our team today," he said. 

Next Race

The Leopards have a week off and will be back racing on October 9th at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational on the campus of Pomona College.