Competing in the Southern California Championships at El Dorado Park in Long Beach on Friday, the Cerritos College men's cross country team finished in ninth place out of 27 schools. The Falcons have advanced to the 3C2A State Championships, which will take place at Woodward Park in Fresno on Saturday, November 18. Cerritos finished with 260 team points and had only one school from the South Coast Conference finish ahead of them.

The ninth place finish by Cerritos was their best since 2017 when they came in seventh place.

Running the four-mile course, Tyler Villanueva (Warren HS) was the first Cerritos runner to complete the course, as he turned in a 32nd place time of 20:42.5. With 189 total runners, there were many groups of runners that crossed the finish line in clusters. Villanueva was part of a trio that all finished within a half second of each other. Not too far behind was Joshua Melendez (St. Paul HS), whose time of 20:52.7 put him in 36th place overall and he held off three other runners who were right behind him in the race.

It was a bit of a drop-off before Jacob Cosio (California HS) was the team's third runner to cross the finish line, as he was clocked in 21:33.2, which put him in 60th place on the day. Just seven seconds behind was Luke Dias (Fountain Valley HS), who posted a 64th place time of 21:39.5 and was second in a group that all finished within six seconds of each other. The final runner to compile the team score for Cerritos was Noah Addison (Long Beach Poly HS), who was the 72nd runner to finish the race and posted a time of 21:51.7.

Also running on the day for Cerritos were Marcus Hughes (Carson HS; 22:10.0; 89th place) and Matthew Alvarez (Warren HS; 22:10.4; 90th place).