CROSS COUNTRY: THESE GUYS ARE ROYALTY ROYAL BOYS WIN AND SET RECORD AT WOODBRIDGE.

Byline: KEVIN CONNELLY Special to the Daily News

IRVINE -- Make no mistake about the ambitions of the Royal High of Simi Valley boys' cross country team.

The Highlanders, sixth-place finishers last year at the inaugural Nike Team Nationals, insist they return enough talent to realistically consider themselves the best team in the nation.

The two-time defending Div.I state champion drove that point home in its first appearance of the season Saturday night, dominating a field which included seven of the state's top 10 teams at the 26th annual Woodbridge Invitational.

Big Bear's Chad Hall clocked 14 minutes on the flat three-mile layout to shatter all-time course record -- set last year by West Covina's Diego Mercado -- by 13 seconds, but Michael Cybulski (14:24) led a pack of five Highlanders to finish in the top 28, as Royal turned in a record-setting performance of its own.

Hudson Andrews (eighth, 14:39), Alex Routh (19th, 14:52), Danny Benson (25th, 14:56) and Jun Reichl (28th, 14:58) combined to score 74 points, helping the Highlanders break their own team sweepstakes record -- set last year -- by more than a minute.

``It's very important to me that we become the best team in the nation this year,'' said Andrews, who helped Royal (73:49) defeat runner-up Trabuco Hills of Mission Viejo (124) by 59 seconds. ``I can't tell you how disappointed we were with finishing sixth last year. I have those results up on my wall.''

Said Hall, who surged ahead of Cybulski with a mile to go: ``I was kind of surprised when I made the final turn and I saw the clock. I had no idea I was on such a fast pace until that moment. I can't believe I broke a runner of (Cybulski's) caliber.''

Woodbridge junior Christine Babcock, the defending state 1,600-meter champion, took advantage of running on her home course to clock 16:31 in the girls' sweepstakes race, breaking the 1998 meet record held by former Canyon of Canyon Country standout Lauren Fleshman by four seconds.

``I wasn't even thinking about the meet record, but I was pretty nervous coming in,'' said Babcock, who led a group that produced five of the 11 fastest times in meet history, including Saugus' Shannon Murakami (fourth, 16:51) and Simi Valley's Anna Sperry (fifth, 16:53).

``There was a lot of good competition here, but I don't really think about that. I just run my own race.''

Babcock, who posted the fifth-fastest 1,600 time (4:41) in state history in June, held off Buchanan of Clovis' Lauren Saylor (16:35) and Glendora's Christy Adamyk (16:40) to drop 44 seconds off her previous-best mark at the invitational.

Saugus had four athletes finish among the top 21 runners, including a sixth-place effort from freshman Amber Murakami (17:06), to capture the sweepstakes team title in a meet-record 87:09.

Katie Dunn (11th, 17:19), Brianna Jauregui (21st, 17:36) and Keri Molt (49th, 18:17) rounded out the group of scoring runners for Saugus -- the Daily News' top-ranked team -- which finished with 69points. The Centurions, No.10 in NTN's California regional rankings, finished 99seconds ahead of Buchanan (120).

Crescenta Valley of La Crescenta (90:45) took fourth (184).

Quartz Hill's Brienna Morris finished seventh (18:00) in the Div. I girls' varsity race.

Erik Boal contributed

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