Serving as the host for the Southern California Cross Country Championships, the Cerritos College men's team finished in 10th place out of 28 schools at Don Knabe Regional Park on Friday. As a result, the Falcons have advanced to the CCCAA State Championships, which will take place Saturday, November 17 at Woodward Park in Fresno. Earlier in the year, the team competed on that course and finished in fifth place. The team finished with 383 team points and needed to finish in the top 14 to advance to the state championships. Three other schools from the South Coast Conference finish ahead of Cerritos on the day.
Running the four-mile course for the third time this season, freshman Pablo Calderon (Downey HS) finished in 45th place out of 193 runners with a time of 20:31.2 and was part of a pack that saw nine runners all finish within five seconds of each other. It was less than a minute later for two more Falcon runners to cross the finish line. Freshman Jaime Quinones (Downey HS) registered a 59th place time of 21:01.1, while sophomore Jamal Awad (Warren HS) took 64th place overall with a clocking of 21:08.2.
The fourth runner to complete the race was sophomore Adrian Casas (Gahr HS), who was also part of a pack of runners to was clocked in 21:25.4, good for 83rd place, while it took :40 seconds for the fifth and final scoring Falcon to cross the finish line. By the time sophomore Ryan Bennett (California HS) finished in 22:05.2, 33 other runners finished ahead of him, leaving Bennett in 117th place. Also runner for Cerritos on the day were freshman Patrick Perez (Downey HS), who took 133rd place in 22:23.5, while freshman Vraj Patel (Cerritos HS) posted a 163rd place time of 23:16.7.