On Friday at the Southern California Preview Meet at El Dorado Park in Long Beach, it looked as though the Cerritos College men's cross country team was poised for a sixth place finish until the final mile. However, runners from Ventura College had a kick that propelled them past the Falcons, who fell to seventh place on the day with 186 team points. The Pirates jumped ahead to fifth place, with the Falcons being to highest placing team from the South Coast Conference. 

 

Next week, the team will travel to Central Park in Huntington Beach for the Golden West Invitational at 10:00 a.m. on Friday.

 

The top Cerritos runner over the four-mile course was Tyler Villanueva (Warren HS), who completed the course in a time of 20:52.2, which put him in 29th place overall. Villanueva was edged out by two seconds for 27th place, while he held off two other runners to secure his placing. Not far behind, Noah Addison (Long Beach Poly HS) was crossing the finish line in 21:09.5, which put him in 34th place out of 263 total runners on the day. His time was good enough to hold off a trio of runners.

 

It was the same situation for Joshua Melendez (St. Paul HS), who was clocked in 21:15.2, which put him in 38th place and just ahead of a pair of runners. The duo of Luke Dias (Fountain Valley HS)  and Jacob Cosio (California HS) came in 47th and 48th places, respectively. There were three Moorpark College runners that pulled ahead of them late in the race, with Diaz finishing in 21:30.5 and Cosio in 21:31.2.

 

Also running on the day for Cerritos were Matthew Alvarez (Downey HS; 22:02.2; 68th place), Edwin Matias (Bell Gardens HS; 22:10.05; 71st place), Ben Ramos (California HS; 22:34.4; 78th place), Jeff Chmiel (Lakewood HS; 22:31.7; 82nd place), Aiden House-Ortiz (Lakewood HS; 22:58.7; 107th place), Marcus Hughes (Carson HS; 23:02.4; 112th place), David Morales (El Rancho HS; 23:18.0; 124th place), Joseph Melendez (St. Paul HS; 23:36.2; 131st place); Angel Serrano (Legacy HS; 23:51.5; 140th place); Shanal De Silva (Warren HS; 24:25.4; 164th place), Jose Ortiz (Norwalk HS; 24:46.9; 175th place), Justin Smith (Lakewood HS; 26:18.2; 204th place), Hector Hernandez (Paramount HS; 27:26.5; 218th place) and Franklin Pedregal (Downey HS; 31:08.7; 249th place).