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Posted: Oct 03, 2023

Mt. SAC Men's Cross Country Features An A-Donis In 2023

Matthew Donis (114) leads Mt. SAC men's cross country.
Matthew Donis (114) leads Mt. SAC men's cross country.

As the defending 3C2A state champions, South Coast Conference member Mt. San Antonio College also had the 2022 individual race champion in sophomore Jesse Alvarado, who set a new state meet, 4-mile course record at Fresno's Woodward Park. Alvarado broke the record set just a year earlier by fellow Mountie Daniel Abdala, the 2021 individual champion.

Fast forward to 2023 and Mt. SAC may have yet another potential state champion emerging in freshman Matthew Donis. At Palmdale's Highland High, Donis was the CIF State Division I boys cross country champion last year and now he is setting his sights at the California Community College level. He already has helped Mt. SAC earn the top SoCal ranking in the 5CTCA poll released on Tuesday (Oct. 2).

Donis ran the fastest 8-kilometer race thus far when he won the 48th Charles Bowles Willamette Invitational held in Salem, Oregon on Sept. 30. Helping Mt. SAC take second as a team against mostly 4-year university competition, he crossed the line in first of 163 runners in an impressive, 23 minutes, 37.8 seconds. Donis averaged a speedy of 4:45.2 seconds per mile.

Donis earned 5CTCA Runner of the Week #4 for his ninth place finish overall at the UC Riverside Invitational, also an 8K race that he finished in 23:52, on Sept. 16.

Donis isn't the only top runner for Mt. SAC as Johnathon Zavala scored a top 10 finish at the season-opening Mark Covert Classic in Fullerton, also v. 4-year university squads. Zavala was ninth overall. Against SoCal community colleges only, he then beat Donis by a fraction of a second at 20:28 over the 4-mile course to win the Oxnard Invitational on Sept. 8. Mt. San Antonio captured the team title with five scoring runners in the top 10 and an amazing 16 runners among the top 29 overall. 

Also in the SCC, Cerritos College was rated #10 and El Camino #12 on the SoCal Top 15 poll.

On Sept. 29, Cerritos won the San Diego City Downey Classic with Joshua Melendez placing second overall on the 4-mile course in 22:17.9. At the 27-team, SoCal Preview Meet in Long Beach, Cerritos placed seventh with Tyler Villanueva racing 20:52.2 for the Falcons' top time in 29th place. At the Golden West Invite on Sept. 22, Cerritos placed fourth with Melendez the top team finisher in 15th place. Mt. SAC did not participate in the meet.

El Camino finished ninth at the SoCal Preview as Aaron Cohen was the fastest Warrior in 21st place (20:44.7). Long Beach City was 14th behind a top time turned in by Riki Moscoso in 30th (20:56.6).

Pasadena City placed 21st as Christopher Camarena was the Lancers top runner in 118th. LA Harbor finished 23rd with the Seahawks led by Artujo DeJesus in 145th. East Los Angeles scored 24th and was paced by Husky David Garcia in 117th position.

Compton was 27th as the Tartars top runner was Jontue Cooper in 159th out of the 263-man field.

The SCC Championships take place Friday, Oct. 27 at Ken Malloy Regional Park in Harbor City.

Release by Robert Lewis, SCC SID