The Cerritos College men's swimming team defeated both Pasadena City College (196-69) and Los Angeles Trade-Tech College (215-54) at a three-team South Coast Conference meet at the Falcon Aquatic Center on Thursday. The win concludes the Falcons conference record at 5-2, as they team will take part in a pair of invitationals next week before competing in the conference championships. Cerritos will swim in the Golden West Invitational on Friday and then in the Pasadena Invitational next Saturday.

As a team, the Falcons won 10 events, which included both relay races, while freshman Joshua Owens (Kennedy HS) picked up three individual wins and one relay victory to lead the way. Freshman Eugene Runas (Long Beach Millikan HS) also had a hand in three wins, with two of them in individual races. Sophomore Enrico Hidalgo (Kennedy HS) and freshman Nathan Umpornpuckdi (Kennedy HS) each won one race as an individual and in a relay.

For Owens, he was a part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that posted a time of 3:27.89 and teamed with Umpornpuckdi, Runas and Hidalgo to edge the second Falcon team in the race by five seconds. In the 200-yard freestyle, Owens won with a time of 1:51.20, while his time of 49.38 in the 100-yard freestyle edged Pasadena City's Stephen To by 1.21 seconds. Owens finished his sweep with a 2:05.53 to win the 200-yard medley relay. Runas picked up his first of two wins in the 100-yard breaststroke, as his time of 1:01.00 was three seconds ahead of teammate Marcus Delgado (La Serna HS), along with a time of 5:13.03 in the 500-yard freestyle to beat LA Trade-Tech's Sergio Vega.

Hidalgo won the 50-yard freestyle sprint with a time of 22.75, with Runas (23.49) and sophomore Joshua Hanein (Warren HS/Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ HS), who finished in third place in 23.73. His time of 1:01.30 put Hidalgo in second place in the 100-yard backstroke. As for Umpornpuckdi, his first place came as a result of his 55.05 time in the 100-yard butterfly, while he finished a distant second place in the 200-yard butterfly (2:05.24) and third in the 100-yard freestyle.

Sophomore Derek Klotzer (Downey HS), Hanein, Delgado and freshman Abraham Gomez (Downey HS) opened the day by winning the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:47.67. In the 1-meter diving competition, Cody Anderson (Valencia HS) compiled 133.65 points to defeat teammate Joseph Owens (Kennedy HS). Klotzer also came in second place in the 200-yard backstroke (2:14.29), while Hanein placed second in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:32.00) and sophomore Kenny deWinstanley (Santa Fe HS) recorded a time of 11:38.60 to come in second place in the 1000-yard freestyle.

Photo by Daryl Peterson