Competing in the pentathlon on Friday and the Waterman Relays at Palomar College on Saturday, the Cerritos College men's swimming team turned in a good showing for their first competition of the season. Individually, three swimmers finished in the top 10 of the five-event pentathlon, while they added one individual second place and two third place finishes in the relays to help the team finish in second place out of five teams with 643.50 team points. South Coast Conference opponent Chaffey College finished in first place with 680 points. The Falcons will now swim in the East Los Angeles Pentathlon this Friday.

Freshman Eugene Runas (Long Beach Millikan HS) finished in fourth place out of 64 competitors in the pentathlon with a cumulative time of 2:46.16, which was helped along by turning in the fastest time of 28.79 in the 50-yard breaststroke. He also recorded the fifth fastest time of 58.89 in the 100-yard IM, while his time of 25.81 in the 50-yard butterfly was the seventh best on the day. Not far behind were the duo of freshmen Nathan Umpornpuckdi (Kennedy HS) and Joshua Owens (Kennedy HS), who finished in ninth and 10th places overall respectively. Owens (25.15) and Umpornpuckdi (25.38) placed fourth and fifth overall in the 50-yard butterfly, while Owens was sixth in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 23.11.

In the Waterman Relays the next day, the Falcons saw Umpornpuckdi come in second place in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.07, while Runas won the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 1:04.22, with Umpornpuckdi in second place at 1:06.14. Owens placed fourth in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.74), with sophomore Enrico Hidalgo (Kennedy HS) coming in second place in the 50-yard freestyle (22.98), with Owens in third place at 23.20.

Cerritos also won the 350-yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:15.84 and took second place in the 350-yard breastsroke relay with a time of 4:08.58, the 200-yard over/under relay (2:02.80) and 400-yard freestyle relay with a clocking of 3:32.47.