In one of their best tests of the season to see where they stand against some of the top teams in the state, the Cerritos College men's cross country team finished in second place on Friday at the Manny Bautista XC Invitational. The Falcons, running at Naval Training Center Park in San Diego, finished with 64 team points and trailed just South Coast Conference rival Mt. San Antonio College, who won the event with 61 team points. The team will travel to Santa Clara next Saturday for the Bronco Invitational, which is hosted by UC Santa Clara.

Running on the four-mile course, Cerritos was represented by the overall champion, as Joshua Morales (Warren HS) finished in a dead heat with San Diego Mesa College's Luciano Roberts, as they both finished in a time of 20:22.50. Morales was ruled the invitational champion when they checked the thousand's of a second. Not far behind was Juan Flores (Warren HS), whose time of 20:36.90 earned him a fourth place finish with teammate Louis Santibanez (Warren HS) recording the eighth fastest time on the day in 20:50.60. 

The top three Mounties runners finished in fifth, 10th and 12th places, respectively. What decided the team champion was the fact that Mt. SAC had their fourth and finish runners place 16th and 20th, with Cerritos seeing their final two scoring runners place 26th and 29th.

Next up for the Falcons was Mikel Bautista (Warren HS), who posted a 26th place time of 21:28.50, while Nikolas Dominguez (Downey HS) saw his time of 21:35.20 put him in 29th place out of 192 runners in the main race.

Also competing in the main race for Cerritos were Alexander Reyes (Downey HS; 21:54.70, 45th place), Jonathan Morales (Downey HS; 21:55.90; 46th place) and Aidan Vigil (La Serna HS; 22:15.00; 64th place).

Each team ran their top eight runners in the primary event, while the rest competed in the overflow race. 

The Falcons took third place in the overflow race, as they compiled 72 team points, while the Mounties came in first place with 19 team points and Riverside City College taking third place with 65 team points.

The top runner for Cerritos in the four-mile race was Axel Rebolledo-Ynostros (California HS) with a second place time of 21:24.10.The team entered 11 runners in the overflow race.