With some of their bigger meets coming up, the Cerritos College men's track and field sent a large group of competitors to the Pasadena Games over the weekend. The Falcons will have the majority of their athletes take part in the Antelope Valley Invitational next Saturday, and will also send several entries to compete in the Stanford Invitational over the weekend.

Some of the better performances over the weekend came from freshman sprinter Craig Jones (Long Beach Jordan HS), who posted a 10.92 in the 100 meters to come in 14th place out of 58 entries, while only three of the finishers ahead of him were from community colleges. It was the similar situation for freshman Miguel Figueroa (Washington Prep HS) in the 400 meters, as his time of 49.52 was a personal best and the 10th fastest out of 37 competitors. Four community college runners finished ahead of Figureoa, while the others were either from four-year universities or club runners.

Freshman George Robinson (Washington Prep HS) took ninth in the 800 meters with a time of 1:59.66, while sophomore Mustafa Khassay (Western HS) wasn't far behind, as he placed 13th in a time of 2:01.30. In the 1500 meters, freshman Omar Torres (Warren HS) was well off his best time, but still placed fourth in 4:07.05, with Kahssay coming in second place in the 5000 meters with a clocking of 15:55.21. Four other Falcons who ran the 5000 meters finished in the top seven, with freshman David Pleitez (Lakewood HS) in fourth place in a time of 16:32.61, while freshmen Donaldo Lopez and Alan Carmona (Maywood Academy HS) placed sixth and seventh, respectively.

In the 400-meter IH, freshman Jason Iles (Long Beach Poly HS) shaved three seconds off his personal best time and placed sixth overall in a time of 55.20, while the trio of Brandon Taylor (Mayfair HS), Joe Magana (Catwell HS) and Jonathan Villa (Long Beach Poly HS) finished within 10 seconds of each other to placed third through fifth in the 3000 meters steeplechase.

In the field events, freshman Adam Aguirre (Cantwell HS) won the javelin with a distance of 52.36 meters, which was a personal best, with teammates Aaron Martin (Carson HS) and Raymond Price (El Dorado HS) finishing in fourth and fifth place with personal best throws. Aguirre also came in third place in the high jump (2.00 meters), while Martin also competed in the pole vault (14th place), long jump (17th place), shot put (17th place) and discus (15th place).

Freshman Joe Leonard (El Rancho HS) threw the shot put 12.09 meters for seventh place and also came in ninth in the discus (38.59 meters) and seventh in the hammer (40.23 meters). Freshman Bobby Villegas (Bell Gardens HS) took seventh place in the discus (38.94 meters), while his toss of 11.42 meters in the shot put earned him a 10th place finish and ninth in the hammer at 35.99 meters.

Photo by Daryl Peterson