Cerritos College freshman swimmer Eugene Runas (Long Beach Millikan HS) won the 100-yard breaststroke at the Golden West Invitational on Friday and set a meet record along the way. Runas, who also won the 50-yard breaststroke, set the meet record with a time of 59.97, which eclipsed the old mark of 1:00:62, set last year by Grossmont College's Julian Myers. The Falcons finished the meet with 972 team points, which put them in fourth place out of the seven schools that competed. They will now host El Camino College and Long Beach City College in a South Coast Conference meet at 12:30 p.m. on Friday.

Runas won the prelims in the race by three seconds and then improved his lead over his closest competitor to six seconds in the championship race. Sophomore teammates Joshua Hanein (Warren HS/Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ CC) finished in seventh place with a time of 1:08.57, while freshman Marcus Delgado (La Serna HS) was a close eighth place at 1:08.77. In the 50-yard breaststroke, Runas registered a time of 28.62 to win the race, while Hanein posted a time of 30.78 to come in seventh place.

In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the quartet of Runas, sophomore Enrico Hidalgo (Kennedy HS), Delgado and freshman Joshua Owens (Kennedy HS) finished in second place behind Golden West with a time of 1:30.92, while in the 400-yard medley relay, the time of 3:56.00 earned a third place finish for Hidalgo, Runas, freshman Nathan Umpornpuckdi (Kennedy HS) and Owens. It was a fourth place finish for the relay team of Hidalgo, Runas, Umpornpuckdi and Owens in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:45.60.

Other strong showings were turned in by Umpornpuckdi in the 100-yard butterfly, as he placed third with a time of 55.48, and was fourth in the 100-yard IM in 59.32. Hidalgo came in third place in the 50-yard freestyle in 22.33, while freshman Angel Banuelos (Western HS) placed fourth in the 50-yard butterfly with a clocking of 27.50. Owens (50.21) and Hidalgo (51.05) came in sixth and seventh, respectively in the 100-yard freestyle, while Banuelos was sixth in the 50-yard backstroke (29.66) and Hidalgo was seventh (29.68). Freshman Albert Kim (Cerritos HS) took seventh place in the 100-yard backstroke in a time of 1:01.44 and Owens placed seventh in the 200-yard freestyle (1:56.48).