Entering the SoCal Preview Meet at Mission Bay in San Diego on Friday, the Cerritos College men's cross country team was ranked #10 in Southern California. The Falcons matched that ranking with a 10th place finish out of 28 schools, as they compiled 330 team points. They will take a week off before competing on September 21 in the Coyote Invitational at Cal State San Bernardino.
With so many schools and runners in the meet, there was also an Overflow Race held, with the Falcons entering five runners and finished in seventh place out of nine schools.
In the main race, sophomore Jaime Quinones (Downey HS) was the first Cerritos runner to complete the four-mile course with a clocking of 22:35.9, good for 42nd place out of 205 runners. Packs of runners finished the race within seconds of each other, with Quinones part of an eight-runner group that posted times within three seconds of each other. It was 34 seconds later before sophomore Alberto Serrano (St. John Bosco HS) became the second Falcon runner to cross the finish line. His time of 23:09.1 was also bunched in with many others and he earned a 67th place result.
Not far behind was freshman Antonio Calderon (La Mirada HS), who posted a 74th place time of 23:20.8, while sophomore Pablo Calderon (Downey HS) was four seconds behind with a time of 23:24.2, which put him in 76th place. The final runner to help compile the team score was freshman Joshua Williams (Los Alamitos HS), who took 89th place overall with a time of 23:47.7.
Also running in the main race for the Falcons included freshman Jordy Mazariegos (La Mirada HS; 24:20.6; 109th place) and freshman Daniel Alonzo (Artesia HS; 25:04.3, 122nd place).
As part of the overflow race, Cerritos finished seventh with 220 team points and were led by sophomore Demian Sanchez Lopez (Schurr HS), who completed the four-mile course in a time of 24:48.7, which put him in 45th place out of 115 runners. Next up was freshman Eliab Ruiz (Norwalk HS), who crossed the finish line in 25:31.3, good for 63rd place, with freshman Joe Munoz (Long Beach Jordan HS) earning 70th place with his time of 26:08.9).
The Falcons also saw sophomore Jarrian Harrison (Long Beach Wilson HS; 27:05.2; 84th place), freshman Dhruv Patel (Cypress HS; 28:41.1; 92nd place) also compete.