Christopher Camarena ran to 43rd place as the Pasadena City College men's cross country team opened the 2023 season with a ninth place team finish (12 colleges) at the Moorpark Invitational on Friday.

Camarena, a freshman from Burbank High, was the Lancers top racer with a time of 24 minutes, 12.6 seconds over the 4-mile course. The rest of the squad ran in a pack with freshmen Luca Augustyn (Temple City HS) placing 48th (24:36), Sergio De Los Santos Jr. (Mountain View) 52nd (24:50), Samuel Platz (Monrovia) 59th (25:42), and Umar Saleem (La Canada) 63rd (25:58.5) all scoring.

Also racing for PCC were sophomore Jaime Loera (Mountain View) in 72nd (27:04), Aghasi Melkonyan (La Canada) in 74th (27:16), and Colt Reichman (North Hollywood) in 78th (28:44.5).

Cuesta's Anthony Erikson won the individual race in 20:31 while host Moorpark took the team title. 

Pasadena, directed by head coach Innocent Egbunike in his seventh season, takes part in the Oxnard Invitational next Friday, Sept. 8 at 10 a.m.