At the CCCAA State Championships on Saturday, the Cerritos College men's cross country team finished in 15th place out of 28 schools. The Falcons, who took 12th at the Southern California Championships two weeks ago, finished with 482 team points, which was two points ahead of South Coast Conference opponent El Camino College.

Competing at Woodward Park in Fresno, Cerritos was led by freshman Carlos Mendoza (Highland HS), who took 67th place, completed the 4-mile course just ahead of a pack of seven other runners with a time of 21:52.4. Another freshman, Faustino Diaz (Warren HS), tied for 83rd place when he finished the course in 22:04.3 and was just edged out by moving up a five positions by less than five seconds.

With so many runners on the day (207 competitors), there were pockets of runners fighting for position from the beginning of the race all the way to the finish line.

Sophomore Alejandro Rios (Chino HS) was part of yet another pack of runners and saw his time of 22:15.3 put him in 97th place, with the next three Falcon runners all finishing within eight seconds. Freshman Anthony Lopez (Downey HS) placed 116th in a time of 22:28.9, with freshman Ricardo Cano (Schurr HS) posting a time of 22:31.3 to earn 119th place. The third member of that trio, freshman Joshua Reinis (Kennedy HS), came in 127th place in 22:36.0. The final Cerritos runner on the day was freshman Isaiah Marshall (Carson HS), who posted a 188th place time of 25:35.0.