For the last two years, the Cerritos College men's cross country team finished sixth at the CCCAA State Championships. On Saturday, the Falcons improved on that, as they came in fourth place out of 27 teams at Woodward Park in Fresno for their best team finish in school history. The team compiled 170 points, which trailed only American River College (72 points), Orange Coast (93) and San Bernardino Valley (122). Two weeks ago, the Falcons came in eighth place at the Southern California Championships after coming in second place in the South Coast Conference Championship.

The top runner for Cerritos on the day in the 5K race was sophomore Jonathan Bazinet (California HS), who earned All-American status by coming in sixth place out of almost 200 runners. His time of 20:26.97 was well off the overall championship time of 19:58.21, but he finished ahead of every other runner from the SCC.

One of the main reasons the team finished so high was their ability to stay in tight groups, as the duo of freshman Omar Torres (Warren HS) and sophomore Elvis Salinas (Norwalk HS) crossedthe finish line at virtually the same time. Torres came in 34th place when he touched up in 21:10.44, with Salinas, the SCC individual champion, 35th in 21:10.77.

Not far behind was freshman Francisco Ortiz (Katella HS), whose time of 21:19.58 earned him 44th place overall, while freshman Josh Roldan (California HS) finished up the team scoring with his 51st place result in 21:25.83. Right behind Roldan was freshman Chris Ramirez (California HS), who took 55th in 21:29.08. The final Falcon runner was freshman Paul Mora (Whittier HS), who ran the course in 22:26.12 for 115th place.