Half of Top 26 At Bautista Men's Cross Country Invitational Made Up Of SCC Harriers

Manny Bautista Invitational Complete Results

The South Coast Conference was a big part of the annual Manny Bautista Cross Country Invitational held at Liberty Station's Naval Training Center in San Diego on October 10.

Mt. San Antonio College edged second-place Cerritos for the men's team title, 60 points to 64, while SCC racers occupied 13 of the first 26 finishers in the 23-team, 196-runner field. 

Cerritos' Joshua Morales won a dead heat over San Diego Mesa's Luciano Roberts for the individual title, just getting to the finish line for first in the 4-mile race in 20 minutes, 22.5 seconds. 

Other top 10 finishers included Juan Flores of Cerritos (fourth place, 20:36.9), Mt. SAC's Diego Varela (fifth, 20:37.6), the Falcons' Louis Santibanez (eighth, 20:50.6), and the Mounties' Jonah Botello (10th, 21:03.10).

LA Harbor, the sixth place team finisher, was led by Aidan Tyler, who placed 13th in 21:04.2. Pasadena City's Maxime Slek was 35th (21:43.9), El Camino's Nathaniel Lincourt took 56th (22:05.1), East Los Angeles' Aaron Reyes finished 70th (22:24.4), and Long Beach City's Sebastian Pardo Sandoval scored 72nd (22:31.3).

Team finishes were East LA in 14th, Long Beach in 16th, Pasadena in 17th, and El Camino in 18th.

Varela, a member of last year's Mt. SAC's state runner-up squad, was a 5CTCA Runner of the Week for his performance as the top community college finisher at the Cal State San Marcos Cougar Challenge on Sept. 13. Varela was 38th at the 3C2A State Championships while Cerritos' Santibanez took 35th as freshmen. 

Varela (fourth) and Santibanez (sixth) were All-SCC at the 2024 South Coast Championships. In 2025, Mt. SAC is attempting to stretch an amazing streak of conference team titles, now at 11 in a row. 

The SCC Finals take place at Mt. San Antonio on Halloween day (Oct. 31). The Mounties won back-to-back state titles in 2022 and 2023. 

Mt. SAC team champions 

 Release by Robert Lewis, SCC SID