After two consecutive third place finishes at the South Coast Conference Championships, the Cerritos College men's cross country team locked down a second place result on Friday. Running at Heartwell Park in Long Beach, the Falcons finished with 46 team points for their runner-up result, with Mt. San Antonio the only school ahead of them with 21 team points. Next up will be the Southern California Championships, which will take place at Chaffey College on November 8.

Sophomore Joshua Melendez (St. Paul HS) was in a battle for the overall championship, but had to settle for second place, as his time of 20:47.4 over the four-mile course was nine second behind first place finisher Austin Ledgerwood of Mt. San Antonio. Melendez held off three other Mounties runners, with teammate Louis Santibanez (Warren HS) locking down sixth place with a clocking of 20:57.3. On the day, there were 121 total runners.

It was an 11-second dropoff before the next Cerritos runner crossed the finish line, as Robert Guerrero (Long Beach Poly HS) finished in 11th place overall with a time of 21:08.0. A pair of runners finished together to round out the team scoring, as Jacob Cosio (California HS) placed 15th in a time of 21:24.0, while Joshua Morales (Warren HS) was 16th when he completed the course in 21:26.6.

In all, 17 runners competed for the Falcons and also included Mikel Bautista (Warren HS; 21:56.7; 24th place), Gerardo Rubio (Warren HS; 22:03.0; 26th place), Noah Addison (Long Beach Poly HS; 22:06.9; 29th place), Axel Rebolledo-Ynostros (California HS; 22:29.3; 39th place), Nikolas Dominguez (Downey HS; 22:43.7; 48th place), Daniel Gonzalez (Schurr HS; 23:14.5; 58th place), Preston Yi (Cerritos HS; 24:06.7; 67th place), Shanal De Silva (Warren HS; 24:23.9; 71st place), Joshua Chazari (Middle College HS; 24:32.4; 73rd place), Guillermo Ramos (Schurr HS; 24:56.8; 80th place), Anthony Ruiz (Long Beach Wilson HS; 25:41.4; 86th place) and Daniel Lopez (Schurr HS; 26:00.6; 89th place).