As they
prepare to get a first look at the location of
this year's state championship, the Cerritos
College men's cross country team used this past
meet as more or less a tempo run. Running in the
Irvine Invitational, the Falcons, ranked #12 in
Southern California, placed seventh out of 13
teams and finished with 156 team points, while
two of the teams that finished ahead of them
were four-year schools. This Saturday, the team
will travel to Fresno and compete in the Fresno
Invitational at Woodward Park, which also serves
as the location for the state championship.
Registering a
solid time in the
8K run was sophomore
Geovanni
Popoca (Valencia HS),
who placed 11th out of the 131 runners with a
time of 27:37.40, while he was the sixth
community college runner to finish the race. A
little over a minute later, freshman
Torion Bailey
(Mayfair HS) crossed the finish line in
30th place with a time of 28:45.40, with
sophomore
Qualaun Reed
(Cabrillo HS) right behind. His time of
28:56.90 was good for 36th place overall.
Freshman Jose Amador (El
Rancho HS) wasn't far behind in 41st place
with a time of 29:02.40, with the team's fifth
place finish coming from freshman Angel
Aguirre (Valencia HS) with a
time of 30:12.40.
The Falcons
bunched their runners from there, with freshmen
John Gaynor (Lakewood HS;
65th place: 30:16.50) and Kyle
Bogda (El Dorado HS;
66th place; 30:17.60), along with sophomore
Armando
Pina (Kennedy HS; 68th
place; 30:22.40) all crossing the finish line
together. Rounding out the team's runners were
sophomore Dashan Craft (Warren
HS; 81st place; 31:09.00) and freshmen
Patrick Schwab (Kennedy HS;
86th place; 31:27.00) and Russell Kelly
(Loara
HS; 87th place; 31:33.90).
