Sophomore cross country runner Munir Kahssay (Western HS) won his third invitational championship of the season, as he beat 116 other runners at the Grand Canyon Invitational in Arizona on Saturday. Kahssay's time of 24:53.5 over the 8K race was five seconds ahead of second place finisher Josh Walker of Arizona State University, while it helped the Falcons finish in second place for the second time this year. As a team, Cerritos compiled 57 points, which was just short of overtaking New Mexico State University, who had 38 team points. The Falcons did defeat four-year colleges, Arizona State, Grand Canyon University and Northern Arizona University. The team will now enter the Mt. San Antonio Invitational on Friday, which will consist of the majority of community colleges in the state.

Kahssay was one of 21 Falcon runners on the day, while the next five runners from the team all finished within a :30 second block to help them with their team placing. Freshman Jonathan Bazinet (California HS) finished the course in ninth place overall in a time of 25:18.2 and was less than a second of moving up two places. Sophomore Thomas Poston (El Dorado HS) was in the next pack of three runners, and his time of 25:28.5 earned him a 12th place finish, with sophomore Brandon Taylor (Mayfair HS) in the next trio to come in 15th place in 25:38.9. Rounding out the team scoring was freshman Elvis Salinas (Norwalk HS), who was clocked in 25:48.2 to come in 20th place overall.

Cerritos also received strong performances from Oscar Contreras (Huntington Park HS; 25th place; 26:01.5), DeShaunte Lewis (Long Beach Poly HS; 31st place; 26:14.9), David Pleitez (Lakewood HS; 35th place; 26:30.6), Jonathan Villa (Long Beach Poly HS; 45th place; 26:47.9), Steven Hernandez (Kennedy HS; 53rd place; 27:07.8) and Mustafa Kahssay (Western HS; 54th place; 27:09.3).