Holding out their top seven runners at the Palomar Invitational on Friday at Guajome Park, the Cerritos College men's cross country team was still good enough to come in third place out of the eight teams that competed. The Falcons finished with 93 team points and trailed only Riverside College, who won the meet with 32 team points, while Saddleback College finished in second place with 50 team points. Cerritos also finished well ahead of South Coast Conference opponent Long Beach City College, who came in sixth place with 138 team points. The squad will now compete in the SoCal Preview Meet nest Saturday at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa.

The top Cerritos runner in the race was freshman Tim Guzman (La Mirada HS), who came in 10th place out of the 79 runners with a time of 22:19, while the next four Falcon runners were bunched up to where they crossed the finish line within 10 seconds of each other to help the team with their strong placing. After Guzman, it was sophomore Joe Magana (Cantwell HS), who ran the course in 23:02 and came in 19th place, while freshmanMustafa Kahssay (Western HS) was part of a tight group and placed 21st in 23:06 with freshman Ruben Baerga in 22nd place at 23:08. The final member of that group was freshman Jesus Morales (Huntington Park HS), who came in 24th place in a time of 23:12.

There were 10 other Falcon runners that competed, with sophomore Jonathan Lynn (Pacifica HS; 29th place; 23:29), freshman Vincent Nuno (Norwalk HS; 36th place; 23:43), freshman Pierce Yakovetic (Cypress HS; 43rd place; 24:08) freshman Jaime Perez (South El Monte HS; 45th place; 24:22), freshman Edward Cruz(Norwalk HS; 49th place; 24:45), freshman Joel Perez (Long Beach Wilson HS; 53rd place; 24:55), sophomoreDaniel Sanchez (Kennedy HS; 54th place; 25:08), freshman Bradley Bounds (Gahr HS; 67th place; 28:22), freshman Luis Carmona (Paramount HS; 72nd place; 20:10) and Julio Canepa (76th place; 33:58) rounding out those competitors.