Last season, Saugus opened 2024 on the road with a close win against Buena.
This year, the Centurions would repeat history against the Bulldogs in 2025, but this time in front of their home fans at College of the Canyons.
The Saugus Centurions (1-0) defeated the Buena Bulldogs (0-1) 35-16 at COC Friday night to claim their first win of the season.
“I’m super happy for the team and the coaching staff. They really put us in a position to succeed, and really happy for the Saugus community,” Saugus quarterback Jake Nuttall said. “It’s a very tight-knit community that loves the football program. And overall, it was just obviously, like a great team win.”
The first quarter started slowly for the Centurions’ offense. The team would fall behind after a Buena field goal that would put the Bulldogs up 3-0.
In the second quarter, the Saugus offense came alive, but not without some help from the defense.
“It all started with a big stop in the red zone by our defense,” Nuttall said. “[Buena] went for it on the fourth down, and obviously they didn’t pick it up. So, we knew as soon as we got that big fourth-down stop, we got to carry down momentum over.”
And carry the momentum the offense did.
Running back Ty Hall would punch the ball into the endzone for a rushing touchdown, and that’s when the floodgates opened for Saugus.
“After we punched it in for the first time, I think everybody’s nerves settled,” Nuttall said. “We realized, it’s just a football game, go out there and just do your jobs and after that, we were able to settle down.”
The Centurions would go on to score 22 points in total in the second quarter and have a 19-point lead over the Buena Bulldogs going into the second half.
Despite the strong first-half performance, head coach Jason Bornn urged his team in the locker room to stay focused and keep up the momentum, and told them the game isn’t over until the final whistle.
“Coach Bornn really puts an emphasis on. ‘You guys can’t slow down, you can’t. Once you’re up by a decent amount of points, the worst thing you could do is give the other team life,’” Nuttall said. “I think when they came out and scored pretty quick, we were like, all right, we got to go answer it right now or else we’re going to make a game out of this.”
In the second half the Centurions were able to match the Bulldogs’ offense, always answering right back whenever Buena scored.
“We were really consistent on offense,” Nuttall said. “We didn’t have any crazy, flashy plays, but we were stripping off 10-plus yards of play and just moving the ball down the field.”
Saugus would win in front of its home crowd in the season opener for the first time since 2020 and begin 2025 with a dominant performance.
Saugus is set to hit the road next week at Oak Park with kickoff slated for 7 p.m. Friday.
“We all enjoyed last night. We enjoyed this morning, but now we have got to turn the page, watch the film for Oak Park, and put ourselves in a good position to succeed,” Nuttall said.
