At last year’s annual Santa Clarita Valley Burrito Bowl, the Hart football team edged Saugus by three seconds.
On Tuesday night outside the Valencia Westfield Town Center, the Centurions got their revenge, defeating the Indians by 16 seconds to claim a victory in the 10th annual Burrito Bowl.
“I wanted to beat them real bad, they got us last year,” said Azariah Beaugard. “That definitely fueled my fire this year.”
“We knew we were going to win because of last year and how fast we ate before,” said Travis Mathis. “We all knew we were fast eaters.”
Saugus, which were the second to last team to tackle the 4-foot long burrito, clocked in at a time of 1 minute and 32 seconds, six seconds shy of the record set last year by Hart.
The Centurions’ strategy was to eat the beans, rice and cheese inside the burrito first before consuming the tortilla. They also had some practice leading up to the event, as some Saugus moms brought them burritos to eat during the week.
“We had a tryout kind of, some of the moms brought burritos,” said Saugus lineman Seth Edwards. “Our strategy was to squeeze then eat, squeeze all the beans and cheese out and then eat the tortilla.”
“It was a quick thing, we just put the beans in our mouth first, the tortilla last and just chug water, chug water,” Beaugard said. “That was our strategy, that was our technique.”
Hart finished in second place, followed by Golden Valley in third, Canyon in fourth and Valencia in fifth. West Ranch tapped out before finishing its burrito.
The Centurions took home a grand prize of $2,000 to be used for their football and cheer programs. Each participating team was awarded $500 for their football programs and $500 for their cheer programs.
New this year was a team of eaters from Fox Sports Prep Zone, nicknamed “the pace setters” by master of ceremonies Mark L. Walberg.
The six-member team consisted of Chris Rix, David Gascon, Dave Caldwell, Dennis Ackerman, Golden Valley golf coach Tony Moskal and Valencia alumnus Brock Vereen.
Canyon head coach Joe Maiale attended his first Burrito Bowl, and was surprised by how big the event is in the community.
“I had no idea, my guys have been bragging all week about eating burritos, I didn’t know it was such a big thing,” Maiale said. “We get here and they were serious, they had a strategy, it was cool. I definitely didn’t expect it to be like this, barriers and cameras and so many people, it was cool.”
Now that Maiale has had a chance to see how big the annual event is, he might even implement a “burrito period” next year.
“I was impressed, I was proud of them. I guess next year we’ll train harder, eat more burritos, have a burrito period, but that was awesome,” he said with a laugh.
