Results

At the SoCal Preview Meet in Bakersfield on Friday, the Cerritos College men's cross country team compiled 420 team points and tied for 16th place out of 25 schools. The Falcons, who were able to bunch their runners together, tied with Antelope Valley College and finished ahead of four South Coast Conference opponents. Next Friday, the team will travel to San Diego to compete in the Coach Downey Invitational.

Running in the heat of Bakersfield, Jose Garcia Chavez (Norwalk HS) completed the four-mile course in a time of 22:19.5, which placed him 54th out of 247 entries and was second out of a four-person pack that all crossed within two seconds of each other. Although it was less than a minute after Garcia Chavez crossed the finish line, the time of 23:15.9 dropped Aiden House-Ortiz (Lakewood HS) into 95th place, as quite a few packs of runners all finished the race together ahead of him.

Jeff Chmiel (Lakewood HS) was the next Falcon to complete the race, and turned in a 134th place time of 24:04.9 and was edged by less than a second by two other runners. Finishing ahead of either one would have put Cerritos in 15th place. The last two runners to complete to team score finished less than one second apart, as Alan Diaz (Katella HS) was 101st in 24:16.7, while Rogelio Garcia finished in 24:17.3, which put him in 102nd place.

Also competing for the Falcons on the day were Jose Ortiz (Norwalk HS; 201st; 26:33.6), Colby Owens (Milford Mill Academy, MD HS; 26:35.6; 202nd), Daniel Gomez (Santa Fe HS; 26:41.6; 203rd) and Angel Serrano (South Gate HS; 28:09.3; 221st).