With 14 teams advancing to the CCCAA State Championships in two weeks, the Cerritos College men's cross country team just made the cut. The Falcons took 14th place at the Southern California Championships at Woodley Park in Van Nuys on Friday. They had 378 team points and finished 22 points ahead of 15th place Citrus College. The championships will take place at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Although the team slipped all the way down to 14th place, their top two runners finished in the top 13 runners out of 192 that competed on the 4-mile course. Leading the way for Cerritos was sophomore Francisco Ortiz (Katella HS), who came in seventh place overall and held off a couple of runners at the finish line. Ortiz (pictured, left) was clocked in 20:25.1, with two other runners finishing less than a second behind him. He was unable to catch up to former Falcon Omar Torres, who posted a time of 20:21.2 for Long Beach City College.

Also running a great race was sophomore Anthony Lozano (La Serna HS), as he came in 13th place overall with a strong time of 20:39.6 and held off a pack of five other runners who were bearing down on him in the stretch. There was a big dropoff before the next Cerritos runner completed the course, which explained their slip in the team standings. The third team runner to cross the finish line was freshman Joshua Quarles (Cerritos HS), who turned in a time of 22:06.8, which placed him 90th overall.

Less than 30 seconds later, sophomore George Robinson (Washington Prep HS) checked in with a time of 22:29.2. But by then, 26 runners had completed the race and Robinson was 117th overall. The team's final runner to cap off the team score was sophomore Eric Sanchez (Katella HS), who recorded a time of 21:11.8, which put him in 151st place overall. Also running for the team was freshman Zacharie Ponce (Long Beach Poly HS), who took 164th place in 23:42.7.