Cerritos College sophomore Elvis Salinas (Norwalk HS) finished the 4-mile course at Heartwell Park on Friday to win the South Coast Conference Men's Cross Country Championship. As a team, the Falcons finished in a close second place with 49 points, with Mt. San Antonio College checking in with 43 team points for the team title. The squad will now run in the Southern California Championships next Friday at Central Park in Santa Clarita. They ran that course two months ago in the SoCal Preview Meet and finished in second place.

Salinas defeated 82 other runners by recording a time of 20:21.00, which was two seconds ahead of second place Michael Nakahara of El Camino College. It was a close push at the end for the top three runners, who all finished within three seconds, while sophomore Jonathan Bazinet (California HS) posted a time of 20:31.00 to come in fourth place overall.

Cerritos had four of the top 13 runners, but could not push past the Mounties, who won the title with a 10-12 finish by their final three runners, as the top five finishers comprise the team score. Freshman Francisco Ortiz (Katella HS) finished ahead of that Mt. SAC trio with a ninth place finish in 20:42.00, with freshman Omar Torres (Warren HS) coming in right after that group in a time of 20:59.00, good for 13th place. The fifth Falcon runner was freshman Christopher Ramirez (California HS), who was clocked in a time of 21:23.00, which put him in 21st place overall.

The Falcons had 16 runners in the race, with sophomore David Pleitez (Lakewood HS) and freshman Anthony Lozano (La Serna HS) also running good races with time of 21:25.00 and 21:28.00, which put them in 22nd and 24th places, respectively. Other runners for Cerritos included Paul Mora (Whittier HS; 21:32.00; 28th place), Joel Perez (Long Beach Wilson HS; 21:52.00; 35th place), Donaldo Lopez (Gahr HS; 21:57.00; 39th place), Steven Hernandez (Kennedy HS; 22:14.00; 45th place) and Ramiro Santana (Warren HS; 22:17.00; 48th place).