For the second season in a row, Cerritos College men's soccer coach Benny Artiaga has been named the Southern California Coach of the Year. Artiaga led the Falcons to an unbeaten regular season and were one win away from advancing to the CCCAA State Final Four before a 1-0 overtime loss ended their season with a 21-1-2 record. It was the fourth time he led a Falcon team to a 20-win season and marks the second time Artiaga has received this award, presented by the California Community College Soccer Coaches Association, which started in 2017, with the Falcon head coach garnering the inaugural award.

"It is always an honor to be recognized amongst my colleagues and peers with this great honor," stated Artiaga, who completed his 18th season at the helm. "I'll always embrace these recognitions because it's an opportunity to be able to recognize our players and our amazing staff. I have a great staff full of passionate and talented coaches. From recruiting, to field sessions, strength and conditioning, goalkeeping training, scouting, paperwork but the most important one, being mentors these young men. We all work extremely hard and countless hours to make sure the guys get the best experience. Cerritos provides these young men that platform to be successful on and off the field."

During the 2022 season, Artiaga and the Falcons went through the South Coast Conference schedule with a 10-0-0 record and capped it off with their second straight conference tournament title, as they defeated the rival Mounties, 3-2. Cerritos was then seeded #1 for the Southern California Regional Playoffs, where they posted a pair of wins before their season came to an end. They scored the most goals on the year in the state (74), while at the same time, owned the lowest goals against average (0.56) on the year.

"Although we didn't bring home a state title, we had an amazing season capturing the majority of our goals. We won the prestigious Hartnell tournament, we won our conference, we won our conference tournament and finished as the top seed in all of California. In addition our staff was also named SCC Staff of the Year, so this honor goes to them and we will come back stronger than ever."

Over the course of his 18 seasons as the Cerritos head coach, Artiaga has led his programs to one National Championship, four CCCAA State Championships and seven conference titles, including the last six seasons (there was no season in 2020 due to Covid-19). Along with the three SoCal Coach of the Year honors, Artiaga has also been named the National Coach of the Year twice, Far West Coach of the Year four times and South Coast Conference Coach of the Year seven times.