With 15 of the 21 college at the Highlander Invitational from four-year schools, the Cerritos College men's cross country team placed 18th on Saturday. Running the 8K race at the Agg Course at UC Riverside, the Falcons compiled 508 team points, with the highest finishing community college team being Glendale College, who finished in 12th place. The team will take next week off to train for the South Coast Conference Championships, which will take place at Irvine Regional Park in Orange at 12:45 p.m. on November 1.

The first Cerritos runner to complete the course was sophomore Pablo Calderon (Downey HS), who posted a time of 26:17.4 to place 92nd overall. With 232 runners taking part in the race, there were numerous clusters of runners finishing the race at the same time. Calderon was part of a group of eight runners that finished within five seconds of each other.

Next up for the Falcons was sophomore Jaime Quinones (Downey HS), whose time of 27:03.0 was part of a pack of 10 runners and earned him 137th place overall, with a trio of Cerritos runners finishing within 10 seconds of each other to close out the team scoring. Freshman Antonio Calderon (La Mirada HS) posted a 155th place time of 27:25.0, with the tandem of sophomore Alberto Serrano (St. John Bosco HS) and freshman Jordy Mazariegos (La Mirada HS) crossing the finish line two seconds apart. Serrano was 158th overall in a time of 27:33.2, with Mazariegos taking 159th in 27:35.1.

Also competing on the day were freshmen Daniel Alonzo (Artesia HS; 29:16.6; 205th place), Eliab Ruiz (Norwalk HS; 29:17.0; 206th place) and Dhruv Patel (Cypress HS; 32:37.4; 230th place).