Led by sophomore Anthony Lozano (La Serna HS), the Cerritos College men's cross country team took seventh place in the Brubaker Invitational at Irvine Park on Friday. The Falcons finished with 164 team points and were barely edged by fifth place Riverside City College (160 team points) and South Coast Conference opponent Long Beach City College (164). It was Vikings runner - and former Falcon - Omar Torres - that was the overall champion on the day. The meet marked the final competition before the South Coast Conference Championships, which will take place on October 31 at Hahamonga Park in Pasadena.

Lozano (pictured, left) was the fourth runner to complete the four-mile course and was clocked in a time of 20:55.7 and was just edged out by El Camino College's Michael Nakahara, who came in third place at 20:55.2. Torres turned in a winning time of 20:29.0 and was the first of four SCC runners to finish the race.

The next Falcon to finish was freshman Eric Sanchez (Katella HS), whose time of 21:47.7 was good for 23rd place, but just missed out on moving up several places. Three runners finished less than two seconds ahead of him and if either Lozano or Sanchez had been able to pull ahead of one or more runner, it could have moved the team up by two places.

Sophomore George Robinson (Washington Prep HS) was the third Cerritos runner on the day, as he took 35th place overall in a time of 22:12.8, while freshman Joshua Quarles (Cerritos HS) put some distance between a few runners to claim 47th place in 22:40.9. The fifth runner to finish the team scoring was freshman Alejandro Rios (Chino HS), who turned in a time of 23:03.5 to earned 63rd place overall.

Also runner for the Falcons on the day were Zacharie Ponce (Long Beach Poly HS; 69th place; 23:12.5), Jorge Ayala (Artesia HS; 100th place; 24:22.1), James Yanez (Long Beach Wilson HS; 101st place; 24:23.4), Kevin Rodriguez (Whittier HS; 105th place; 24:46.6), Marco Zaragoza (Artesia HS; 117th place; 25:16.0), Anthony Perez (Bell Gardens HS; 123rd place; 25:37.8) and Ryan Lopez (Montebello HS; 131st place; 26:37.9).