The San Diego Mesa College men's cross country team finished off a successful season with a third place finish in the State Championships. The meet was held in Fresno on Woodward Park's 4 mile course. Mesa did a fine job of competing against a very strong field, finishing with 101 points for the bronze medal position. The meet was won by American River, who ran the most dominating team performance in recent history while scoring only 49 points. Second was four-time defending champion San Bernadino Valley, who edged out Mesa while scoring 91 points.
Leading the way for Mesa were Dylan Marx and Aaron Thomas. Dylan and Aaron had been the team leaders all season and the state championships were no exception. Both did an excellent job of moving up positions throughout the race, ending up in 4th and 5th place in times of 20:15 and 20:16. These performances put them on the All-State Team and gave them All-American honors. Coach Thom Hunt stated that "both Dylan and Aaron came prepared for a top performance at state. Both came through to get the team in position to reach the medal podium". Third man for Mesa was Eric Brown. Brown also did an excellent job of threading his way through the field to finish in 23rd place with a time of 20:49. Finishing off the scoring for Mesa were Eddie Ramos (30th, 20:55) and Temesgen Petros (41st, 21:08). Both provided the depth needed to secure the team's overall finish. Non-scoring team members Arturo Canela and Carlos Bojorquez had tougher days. Arturo came into the meet with an injury that proved a hindrance throughout the race. Carlos was working his way up to join his teammates when on the 2nd hill on the course he was tripped and fell. He immediately scrambled to his feet but found that he was no longer able to run with a fluid motion and he struggled to gamely finish the race.
Coach Hunt was extremely pleased with his team's performance. "Our team ran very aggressively and competed to the best of their abilities. All of our athletes finished strongly, passing other runners all the way to the finish line. Overall, it was very satisfying to end the season on the victory podium". The medal winning performance was Mesa's third in the past five seasons.